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A BIRTHDAY : — and a day that rose 

With much of hope, with meaning rife — 

A thoughtful day from dawn to close : 

The middle day of human life. 

A Birthday Walk. 


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S'attuarp. 


♦ 


It was in the Arctic winter, and the frozen snow was as hard 
as stone; it glittered and sparkled, for the stars were bright 
overhead, and the moon was at the full. It was high tide, and 
the waves, of a deep leaden gray, were rearing up their great 
crests and flinging themselves down W’ith a thundering noise on 


the shore. 

At a distance you might hear the screaming of sea-birds, as 
they skimmed with their white wings over the water; and along 
the skirts of the icebergs you might see the foxes prowling, and 
catch in the twilight the fiery glitter of their tawny eyes. 

Besides this there was no sound — no movement; everything 
in that starlit night was desolate. The world was turning round 
under those stars, for they shifted, as it seemed, their places; 
and the moon was riding on through the millions upon millions 
that make up the Milky Way; but beyond this movement 
there was no change in the heavens from hour to hour, and 
there was no change or movement beneath them everything 
was perfectly white and utterly still. 

Did I say it was white ? So it was a moment ago ; but it has 
changed! The whole world and the heavens have undergone 
a change! There is a quivering in the sky —a swift spire of 
flame shoots across the stars. Another! 1 here is a deep glow 

in the zenith, like a half-transparent crimson cloud. It spreads 
out suddenly ; then it quivers; it sinks downwards ; it is like a 
pennon of fire shaken in an angel’s hand. Nowit divides it 
multiplies — and flushes a more rosy red; it trails itself out 
before the stars, and floats across the moon like a veil — a won¬ 
derful veil! The whole heavens are red with it; and the 
earth, which was white, has put on a crimson blush —every 
iceberg has a crimson edge and every wave has a crest of 


crimson foam. 


Stories Told to a Child. 


5 



January i 



O, let me be myself! But where, O where, 

Under this heap of precedent, this mound 
Of customs, modes, and maxims, cumbrance rare 
Shall the Myself be found ? 

O thou Myself thy fathers thee debarred 
None of their wisdom, but their folly came 
Therewith ; they smoothed thy path, but made it hard 
For thee to quit the same. 

Honors. 

- January 2 -— 

The logs bum red ; she lifts her head 

For sledge-bells tinkle and tinkle, O lightly swung. 
“Youth was a pleasant morning, but ah! to think 
’t is fled, [was young.” 

Sae lang, lang syne,” quo’ her mother, “ I, too, 

No guides there are but the North star, 

And the moaning forest tossing wild arms before. 
The maiden murmurs, “ O sweet were yon bells afar, 
And hark! hark! hark! for he cometh, he nears 
the door.” 

Fated to be Free. 

- --- January 3- 

When people wish to say—not how great a dis¬ 
tance they have to go in order to reach a certain 
place, but how far it really is straight from point to 
point — they say it is so far, as the crow flies. 
Now, Polly, suppose you try to do all you have to 
do “as the crow flies.” Don’t be like the robin, 
which flew down, and then up again, and then 
stopped, and considered, and fluttered about; but 
go on patiently and steadily, “ as the crow flies.” 

Stories Told to a Child. 


6 
















- January i 

CIRCUMCISION. 


January 2 


January 3 


7 











January 4 


“ I’m like a good clock,” said Crayshaw, “ I neither 
gain nor lose. I can strike, too.” 

Fated to be Free. 


January 5 


Serve, — woman whom I love, ere noon be high, 
Ere the long shadow lengthen at thy feet. 
Work, —I have many poor, O man, that cry. 

My little ones do languish in the street. 

Love,— ’t is a time for love, since I love thee. 
Live, —’t is a time to live. Man, live in Me. 

Poems. 


January 6 — 


Daughters of Eve! it was for your dear sake 
The world’s first hero died an uncrowned king; 
But God’s great pity touched the grand mistake, 
And made his married love a sacred thing: 

For yet his nobler sons, if aught be true, 

Find the lost Eden in their love to you. 

Contrasted Songs. 


8 















January 4 


Jamiary 5 


epiphany . 


January 6 


9 











January 7 


Let them boast of thy word, “ It is certain: 

We doubt it no more,” let them say, 

“Than to-morrow that night’s dusky curtain 
Shall roll back its folds for the day.” 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


— January 8 


How difficult it is for us to estimate the many 
ways in which we may be mistaken. When shall 
we learn to keep the knowledge always present 
with us, that often kindness is our best uprightness, 
and our truest justice is mercy ? 

Stories Told to a Child. 


- January 9 -- 

The thing that might have been 
Is called, and questioned why it hath not been; 
And can it give good reason, it is set 
Beside the actual, and reckoned in 
To fill the empty gaps of life.” Ah, so 
The possible stands by us ever fresh, 

Fairer than aught which any life hath owned, 

And makes divine amends. 

Gladys and her Island. 


10 












i 


January 7 





January 8 




January 9 















January io 



Peace! Say thy prayers, and go to sleep, 

Till some time , One my seal shall break. 
And deep shall answer unto deep, 

When He crieth, “Awake!” 

Contrasted Songs. 


January 11 


O that some power would give me Adam’s eyes I 
O for the straight simplicity of Eve 1 

Honors. 


January 12 


Who may inherit next or who shall match 
The Swan of Avon and go float with him 
Down the long river of life aneath a sun 
Not veiled, and high at noon ? — the river of life 
That as it ran reflected all its lapse 
And rippling on the plumage of his breast ? 

Letters on Life and The Morning. 


12 































% 

January io 






















































January II- 






















































January 12 































' 




















*3 



























January 13 


“But you know, John,” she answered, as if excus¬ 
ing herself, “ we are not at all sure that we shall have 
any possessions, anything of our own, in the future 
life — anything, consequently, to give away. Per¬ 
haps it will all belong to all. So let us have enough 
of giving while we can, and enjoy the best part of 
possession.” 

Fated to be Free. 


- January 14 — 


I grant to the wise his meed, 

But his yoke I will not brook, 

For God taught me to read, — 

He lent me the world for a book. 

Songs with Preludes. 


January 15- 


Let us do good, not to receive more good in re¬ 
turn, but as an evidence of gratitude for what has 
already been bestowed. In a few words, let it be 
“all for love, and nothing for reward.” 

Stories Told to a Child. 


14 










January 13 


January 14 


January 15 











January 16 - 


While I listened, like young birds, 

Hints were fluttering; almost words, — 
Leaned and leaned, and nearer came; — 
Everything had changed its name. 

Don John. 


- —January 17 --— 

Her love was so fresh, it might no more be with¬ 
stood than the mo§s can withstand the dew that 
drenches it and makes it sparkle in the morning. 

Her wonder was more unsated than ever, her hope ' 
was more nearly possession than ours. If sorrow 
came up, it was a dark amazement. Would it not 
soon be over ? There are many days of sunshine 
for one thunder-storm. 

Sarah De Berenger . 

-— January 18 -- 

She has an incurable habit of looking at things * 
from the passive point of view. She never says, 

“ 1 hav e not understood such and such people,” but 
always, “ They do not understand me; ” she never 
| considers, when things occur, what share she may 
have had in causing them to occur. 

A Sister's Bye-Hours. 


16 
















January 16 










January 17 







January 18 























- yanuary 19 


— 


He with good gifts that most is blest, 

Or stands for God above the rest, 

Let him so think —“ To serve the dear, 
The lowlier children I am here. 


“ It is the children’s bread I break; 

He trusts me with it for their sake; 
(Hunger I must if none it shares) 

It is but mine when it is theirs. 

Poems. 


yanuary 20 -— 


When I do sit apart 

And commune with my heart, 

She brings me forth the treasures once my own; 
Shows me a happy place 
Where leaf-buds swelled apace, 

And wasting rims of snow in sunlight shone. 

A Reverie . 


----— yanuary 21 ——-- 

A thing that is very unexpected and moderately 
strange, we meet with wide-opened eyes, with a start 
and perhaps exclamations; but a thing more than 
strange, utterly unaccounted for, quite unreasonable, 
and the last thing one could have supposed possible 
as coming from the person who demanded it, is met 
in far quieter fashion. 

Fated to be Free. 












January ig 


January 20 


January 21 












January 22 



— 


It would be hard to say of any man that he is 
never right. If he is always thinking that he has 
forgotten a certain lady, surely he is right some¬ 
times. 

Fated to be Free. 


January 23 


Is life a field ? then plough it up — re-sow 
With worthier seed — Is life a ship? O heed 
The southing of thy stars — Is life a breath ? 
Breathe deeper, draw life up from hour to hour, 
Aye, from the deepest deep in thy deep soul. 

Letters on Life and The Morning. 


\ 


- January 24 


We walk securely under His guidance, without 
whom “ not a sparrow falleth to the ground I ” and 
when we have had escapes that the angels have 
admired at, we come home and say, perhaps, that 
“ nothing has happened; at least nothing particular.” 

Stories Told to a Child. 




20 














January 22 






January 23 


January 24 






















January 25 


Sorrow was a ship, I found, 

Wrecked with them that in her are, 

On an island richer far 

Than the port where they were bound. 

Pain, that to us mortals clings, 

But the pushing of our wings, 

That we have no use for yet, 

And the uprooting of our feet 
From the soil where they are set. 

Contrasted Songs. 

- January 26 -:- 


We are much bound to them that do succeed ; 
But, in a more pathetic sense, are bound 
To such as fail. They all our loss expound ; 
They comfort us for work that will not speed, 
And life — itself a failure. 

Failure. 


- January 27 -- 

Thoughts are certainly able to spread themselves 
without the aid of looks or language. Invisible 
seed that floats from the parent plant can root itself 
wherever it settles ; and thoughts must have some 
medium through which they sail till they reach 
minds that can take them in, and there they strike 
root, and whole crops of the same sort come up, 
just as if they were indigenous, and naturally be¬ 
longing to their entertainers. This is even more 
true in great matters than in small. 

Fated to be Free. 


22 

























January 28 


There were no duties that she habitually per¬ 
formed ; there was no place that she occupied; no 
one looked to her or depended on her for anything ; 
no one seemed to be the better for her; she seemed 
to have no more to do with the course of that stream 
of life on which she floated than the least little piece 
of weed may have, that, being detached from its 
stem, goes sailing down its native brook to the sea. 

The Cumberers. 

- January 29 - 


Turn your back on the light, and you’ll follow a 
shadow. The deaf queen Fate has dumb courtiers. 
If the hound is your foe, don’t sleep in his kennel. 
That that is, is. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


- January 30 



The happy find 
Equality of beauty everywhere 
To feed on. All of shade and sheen is theirs, 
All the strange fashions and the fair wise ways 
Of lives beneath man’s own. 

Letters on Life and The Morning. 


24 
















January 28 


% 


January 29 



January 30 

















- January 31 


Art tired ? 

There is a rest remaining. Hast thou sinned ? 
There is a Sacrifice. Lift up thy head, 

The lovely world, and the over-world alike, 
Ring with a song eterne, a happy rede, 

“ Thy Father loves thee.” 

Songs with Preludes. 


20 









































































f e&niarp. 


—♦— 

The winter following these little events was ex¬ 
tremely mild — so much so, that all the spring flow¬ 
ers were in bloom by the middle of February; but 
at that time the weather suddenly changed ; we had 
a hard frost, and a remarkably heavy fall of snow. 
All over the hollow, in which our house stood, it was 
more than five feet deep, and on the side against 
which the wind blew, the windows were blocked up 
as high as the top row of panes. 

When this frost had lasted three weeks there was 
a sudden thaw and a heavy fall of rain, which riddled 
the snow full of round holes. In a few days the warm 
sun was again shining upon the crocuses and snow¬ 
drops ; the wet bunches of laurestinus flower began 
to raise themselves and dry their shining leaves, and 
the aconites and hepaticas were as gay as ever. 

A Sister's Bye-Hours . 

The moon is bleached as white as wool, 
And just dropping under; 

Every star is gone but three, 

And they hang far asunder, — 

There’s a sea-ghost all in gray, 

A tall shape of wonder ! 

Songs of the Night Watches. 












February I 


“ Nothing like work,” he would reply. “ ‘ Blessed 
be the man that invented sleep,’ quoth the Irishman; 
but I say, ‘ Happy rest the man that invented saw¬ 
ing.’” 

Off the Skelligs. 


February 2- 


Let me be only sure ; for sooth to tell, 

The sorest dole — is doubt. 

Don John. 


——-—— February 3 — - 

I don’t wish to make a kind of occupation of the 
poor, and go to see them for my own benefit, because 
I have nothing else to do. I call that playing at 
charity. Idle men take a little land, you know, and 
farm it, avowedly for their own amusement. Idle 
women take a little land (the difference is that on 
their land are houses instead of weeds), and they farm 
it, — only, in place of mangel-wurzel and clover, they 
sow successive crops of tracts and grocery tickets. 

A Sister's Bye-Hours. 















PURIFICA TION. 



February I 




- February 2 

CANDLEMAS. 



-—February 3 

















February 4 


Do not expect that in your own strength you can 
make use of even the best opportunity of doing 
good. 

Stories Told to a Child. 


-- February 5 - : - 

Hard is life 

For some. They would that they could soften it; 
And, in the doing of their work, they sigh 
As if it "was their choice and not their lot; 

And, in the raising of their prayer to God, 

They crave His kindness for the world He made, 
Till they, at last, forget that He, not they, 

Is the true lover of man. 

Monitions of the Unseen. 


February 6 


Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire — 
Our only greatness is that we aspire. 

A Snow Mountain. 













February 4 


February 5 


February 6 













Emily had not one of those poverty-stricken na¬ 
tures which are never glad excepting for some special 
reason drawing them above themselves. She lived 
in an elevated region full of love and wonder, taking 
kindly alike to reverence and to hope; but she was 
seldom excited, her feelings were not shallow enough 
to be easily troubled with excitement, or made fitful 
with agitation. 

Fated to be Free. 


- February 8 - 

In the night she told a story. 

In the night and all night through, 

While the moon was in her glory, 

And the branches dropped with dew. 

’T was my life she told, and round it 
Rose the years as from a deep ; 

In the world’s great heart she found it, 
Cradled like a child asleep. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


February 9 


People that take charity, sir, can never get it by 
itself. They always have to take something else 
with it. Sometimes, what they have with the charity 
is scolding, and sometimes good advice; but they 
never get it neat. 


A Sister’s Bye-Hours. 


















February 7 



- 















February 8 




February 9 


3S 




















“I’ll tell you what,” said this puny philosopher, 
“I used always to hate the morals, — but it’s no 
good! They ’re in everything. It’s my belief they 
re a part of the world. Yes, they ’re ingrain! ” 

Off the Skelligs. 


February n 


O Fancy, if thou flyest, come back anon, 

Thy fluttering wings are soft as love’s first word, 
And fragrant as the feathers of that bird, 

Which feeds upon the budded cinnamon. 

Fancy. 


- February 12- 

Life is not enough, 

Nor love, nor learning, — Death is not enough 
Even to them, happy, who forecast new life j 
But give us now and satisfy us now, 

Give us now, now, to live in the life of God, 
Give us now, now, to be at one with Him. 

Letters on Life and The Morning. 















• February io 


February n 


■February 12 


37 











February 13 


There are some days that die not out, 

Nor alter by reflection’s power, 

Whose converse calm, whose words devout, 
For ever rest*, the spirit’s dower. 

And they are days when drops a veil — 

A mist upon the distance past; 

And while we say to peace — “ All hail! ” 

We hope that always it shall last. 

A Birthday Walk. 

- February 14- 


It’s we two, it’s we two, it’s we two for aye, 

All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay. 
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride ! 

All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


|-:- February 15- 

“ Ain’t a gentleman a man with good manners ? 
Now a good-manner’d man is allers saying by his 
ways and looks to them that air beneath him, 
‘You’re as good as I am!’ and a bad-manner’d 
man is allers saying by his ways and looks to them 
that air above him, ‘I’m as good as you air 1 ’ 
Now your real gentleman thinks most of them things 
that make men ekal, and t’ other chap thinks most of 
what makes them unekal.” 

Fated to be Free. 


38 













February 13 


- -February 14 

ST, VALENTINE. 



February 15 











February 16 


— 


Do not put off till another day any good which it 
is in the power of your hand to do at once. 

Stories Told to a Child. 


February 17- 


Such as have not gold to bring Thee, 

They bring thanks — Thy grateful sons; 
Such as have no song to sing Thee, 

Live Thee praise — Thy silent ones. 

Poems. 


February 18- 


Divine Love came down to take on itself our sins, 
but there is no Saviour to do the like for our mis¬ 
takes. 


Sarah De Berenger. 





































.—-- February 19- 

“It seems shocking to think that some people 
should be sent into this world to teach others forbear¬ 
ance, only by being useless or unaccommodating.” 
“ My dear,” she answered, “ far be it from me to say 
that the Almighty designed any of his creatures for 
such a purpose ; I meant, that if we do not perform 
the good part that we all have it in our power to 
take upon us, God will make our evil subservient to 
the good of others. God will turn our very faults 
into blessings for our neighbors.” The Cumberers . 

- February 20 -- 


If we consider women whose lot it is to inspire 
deep affection, we shall sometimes find them, not 
those who can most generously bestow, but those 
who can most graciously receive. 

Don John. 


--- February 21- 

Do not despond because your means of doing 
good appear trifling and insignificant, for though one 
soweth and another reapeth, yet it is God that giveth 
the increase; and who can tell whether he will not 
cause that which is sown to bear fruit an hundred 
fold, who can tell whether to have even a penny to 
give under certain circumstances may not be to have 
no copper — but a golden opportunity. 

Stories Told to a Child. 


42 

















February 19 





February 20 


February 21 

















- February 22 - 

Though all great deeds were proved but fables fine, 
Though earth’s old story could be told anew, 
Though the sweet fashions loved of them that sue 
Were empty as the ruined Delphian shrine — 
Though God did never man, in words benign, 

With sense of His great Fatherhood endue, 
Though life immortal were a dream untrue, — .. 
Though all these were not, — to the ungraced heir 
Would this remain, — to live as though they were. 

Poems. 

- February 23- 

Emily’s joyous and impassioned nature, though 
she lived safely, as it were, in the middle of her own 
sweet world — saw the best of it, made the best of 
it, and colored it all, earth and sky, with her tender 
hopefulness — was often conscious of something yet 
to come, ready and expectant of the rest of it. The 
rest of life, she meant; the rest of sorrow, love, and 
feeling. 

Fated to be Free. 


-- —February 24- 

Times when the troubles of the heart 
Are hushed — as winds were hushed that day — 
And budding hopes begin to start, 

Like those green hedgerows on our way: 

When all within and all around, 

Like hues on that sweet landscape blend, 

And Nature’s hand has made to sound 
The heartstrings that her touch attend. 

A Birthday Walk. 


44 













—-- February 22 

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 

















February 25 





Work is its own best earthly meed, 

Else have we none more than the sea-born throng 
Who wrought those marvellous isles that bloom afar. 

Work. 


February 26- 


There are some little women that are insignificant 
and nobody takes the least notice of them. They are 
not big enough to be handsome ; they are not witty 
nor clever, and so they get overlooked. Nobody 
falls in love with them, and nobody dislikes them. 

Off the Skelligs. 


February 27—— 


She comforts all her mother’s days, 

And with her sweet obedient ways 
She makes her labor light; 

So sweet to hear, so fair to see ! 

O, she is much too good for me, 

That lovely Lettice White 1 

Supper at the Mill. 


45 













February 25 - 




February 26 




February 27 

















February 28 


— 


Nay, they count themselves so wise, 
There is no task they shall be set to do 
But they will ask God why. What mean they so ? 
The glory is not in the task, but in 
The doing it for Him. 

Monitions of the Unseen . 


- February 29- 

O sleep! O sleep! 

Do not forget me. Sometimes come and sweep, 
Now I have nothing left, thy healing hand 
Over the lids that crave thy visits bland, 

Thou kind, thou comforting one: 

For I have seen his face, as I desired, 
And all my story is done. 

O, I am tired! 

Songs of the Night Watches. 


48 

















February 28 






































. 




















/ 







































First, he skirted it all about. From above it was 
nearly as round as a cup, and as deep in proportion 
to its size. The large old trees had been left, and 
appeared almost to fill it up, their softly rounded 
heads coming to within three feet of the level where 
he stood. All the mother birds — rpoks, jays, 
thrushes, and pigeons — were plainly in view under 
him, as they sat brooding on their nests among the 
topmost twigs, and there was a great cawing and 
crowing of the cock-birds while they flew about and 
fed their mates. The leaves were not out; their 
buds only looked like green^eggs spotting the trees, 
excepting that here and there a horse-chestnut, for¬ 
warder than its brethren, was pushing its crumpled 
foliage out of the pale-pink sheath. Everywhere 
saplings had been cut down, and numbers of them 
strewed the damp mossy ground; but light pene¬ 
trated, and water trickled, there was a pleasant scent 
of herbs and flowers, and the whole place was cheer¬ 
ful with growth and spring. p ate ^ to fo p re€t 

I sat, as I well remember, in the glorious sunshine, 
and rejoiced in the beauty of the spring. The 
magnolia buds were spreading, and all its snowy 
flowers ready to burst; the American cowslip thickly 
covered the ground on which I sat; great flocks of 
pigeons were cooing and winnowing the air with 
their wings overhead; the yellow-bird was chatter¬ 
ing in the wood; and from every pore of the warm 
and steaming earth, life and growth were breaking 
forth. Marked . 


5i 











-—- March I —- 

Nature, before it has been touched by man, is 
almost always beautiful, strong, and cheerful in man’s 
eyes ; but nature, when he has once given it his cul¬ 
ture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sor¬ 
row and helplessness. It is so flavored with his 
thoughts, and permeated by his spirit, that if the 
stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it cannot for 
a long while do without him, and live for itself as 
fully and as well as it did before. 

Fated to be Free. 

- ■March 2 - : - 

“ Whether is best, thou forest-planter wise, 

To minister to others, or that they 

Should minister to thee ? ” Then, on my face 

Low lying, I made answer : “ If is best, 

Most High, to minister; ” and thus came back 
The answer, — “ Choose not for thyself the best: 

Go down, and, lo! my poor shall minister, 

Out of their poverty, to thee.” 

Monitions of the Unseen. 

- March 3--— 

When found the rose delight in her fair hue ? 
Color is nothing to this world; ’t is I 
That see it. Farther, I discover, soul, 

That trees are nothing to their fellow trees; 

It is but I that love their stateliness, 

And I that, comforting my heart, do sit 
At noon beneath their shadow. 


Dominion. 















March I 




March 2 











March 3 


















— March 4 


When I remember something which I had, 

But which is gone, and I must do without, 

I sometimes wonder how I can be glad, 

Even in cowslip time when hedges sprout; 

It makes me sigh to think on it, — but yet 
My days will not be better days, should I forget. 

Songs with Preludes. 


March 5 


Many confess that they are proud; some will 
even confess that they are vain; some will sigh 
frankly over their passionate tempers; and others 
again will admit that they are of careless dispositions. 
But who tells, who confesses how mean she is, or 
how sly, or how envious ? 

Studies for Stories. 


— March 6 


** Depression is the result of circumstances.” 

“You are wrong, Miss Salter. Depression of 
spirits, when it is real, and when people cannot help 
it, comes, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, from 
dyspepsia, or from a disordered liver, — in short, 
from bodily causes.” 

Dr. Deane's Governess. 



54 















Ma rch 4 







































March 5 




_ 


_ 


_ 
















March 6 














_ 

55 

























March 7 


w Coz gave each of us a sugared almond,” said Ama¬ 
bel, pouting. “ I said, ‘ Dick, you may take a bite of 
mine,’ and he — Oh, Dick, you in-principled boy, you 
gobbled it all up—and now,” she continued, with 
deep melancholy, “ I can never get it back.” 

Sarah De Berenger. 


March 8 — 


Let a Frenchwoman nurse me when I am ill, let 
an Englishwoman clean me my house, and an Eng¬ 
lishman write me my poetry I 

Don John. 


--- March 9-- - —- 

The need for self-sacrifice is so completely the law 
of the world, that it is not merely in religious mat¬ 
ters that we must give all, or get nothing. If we 
want to do any great good to our fellow-creatures, 
though it be solely a temporal good, it is just the 
same. Give yourself and all you have, and most 
likely you will get it; give half, and you get noth¬ 
ing worth mentioning. 


Off the Skelligs. 














March 7 


March 8 


March 9 















- March io- 

The cold is not in crag, nor scar, 

Not in the snows that lap the lea, 

Not in yon wings that beat afar, 

Delighting, on the crested sea; 

No, nor in yon exultant wind 

That shakes the oak and bends the pine. 
Look near, look in, and thou shalt frncf 
No sense of cold, fond fool, but thine 1 

Songs on the Voices of Birds. 

--— March 11 -- 


A word to the nobler sex, 

As thus; we pray you carry not your guns 
On the full-cock; we pray you set your pride 
In it's proper place, and never be ashamed 
Of any honest calling, — let us add, 

And end; for all the rest, hold up your heads 
And mind your English. 

Gladys and her Island. 


-March 12 


How beautiful 

Are children to their fathers ! Son, my heart 
Is greatly glad because of thee; my life 
Shall lack of no completeness in the days 
To come. If I forget the joy of youth, 

In thee shall I be comforted; ay, see 
My youth, a dearer than my own again. 

A Story of Doom. 


53 






















- March 13 


Is it what we impart, or impute to nature from 
ourselves, that we chiefly lean upon? or does she 
truly impart of what is really in her to us ? 

Fated to be Free. 


March 14 


It is the one lovely folly of the world. Who 
could bear to think of all that childhood demands 
of womanhood, if he did not bear in mind the sweet 
delusive glamour that washes every woman’s eyes 
ere she catches sight of the small moital sent to be 
her charge. 

Fated to be Free. 


March 15 — 


“Ah! why to that which needs it not,” 
Methought, “should costly things be given? 
How much is wasted, wrecked, forgot, 

On this side heaven! ” 

The Letter L. 



60 





































March 16 


I do not know why a girl should be expected to 
talk well till she is at least twenty. There cannot 
be much in her, she may be prettily exacting, or 
charmingly modest, but her attractions must be per¬ 
sonal, not intellectual. 

Off the Skelligs. 


-- March 17 - ; - 

There was a morning when I longed for fame, 

There was a noontide when I passed it by, 

There is an evening when I think not shame 
Its substance and its being to deny ; 

For if men bear in mind great deeds, the name 
Of him that wrought them shall they leave to die; 
Or if his name they shall have deathless writ, 

They change the deeds that first ennobled it. 

The Star's Monument. 


March 18 


Now then, “ Share and share alike,” as the tiger 
said to the washerwoman; “you shall mangle the 
skirts and I the bodies.” 


Don yohn. 



















March 16 



























March 17 


— 



























March 18 













































March 19 


I opened the doors of my heart. 

And behold, 

There was music within and a song, 

And echoes did feed on the sweetness, repeating it 
long. 

I opened the doors of my heart: and behold, 

There was music that played itself out in aeolian 
notes, 

Then was heard, as a far-away bell at long intervals 
tolled. 


Contrasted Songs. 

—— March 20 - 




I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, 
While dear hands are laid on my head; 

“ The child is a woman, the book may close over, 
For all the lessons are said.” 


I wait for my story — the birds cannot sing it, 

Not one, as he sits on the tree ; 

The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it! 
Such as I wish it to be. 

Songs of Seven. 


- March 2 1 -— 

O perfect love that ’dureth long ! 

Dear growth, that, shaded by the palms, 

And breathed on by the angel’s song, 

Blooms on in heaven’s eternal calms ! 

How great the task to guard thee here, 

Where wind is rough and frost is keen, 

And all the ground with doubt and fear 
Is checkered, birth and death between! 

Afternoon at a Parsonage. 


64 
































March 22 




“I think,” said the child, with grave contempt, 
— “I think I shall dig a hole and bury my doll.” 
“ Poor thing ! ” said I, “ what has she done ? ” 
“ Why,” replied the child, in a sharp tone of injured 
feeling, “she’s no use at all. I’m always saying, 
* How do you do ? ’ to her, and she, — she never says, 
4 Very well, thank you.’ ” 

The Stolen Treasure. 


- March 23 - 

“No, mother,” said John; “but we have been 
talking about being ambitious, and Emily says she is 
sure there must be two kinds, and that hers was the 
wrong one, so she sent her love to you, mother, and 
I was to tell you that she knew you had often thought 
her ambitious and so she has been: she has been 
always wishing, she says, to rise and do a higher 
kind of work, instead of doing her own work in the 
highest and best way.” 

Emily's Ambition. 

-- March 24 —- 


Friend, it is time to work. I say to thee, 
Thou dost all earthly good by much excel; 
Thou and God’s blessing are enough for me : 
My work, my work—farewell! 

Honors. 


66 












March 22 


March 23 



March 24 












March 25 




Nor Herod’s judgment-halls suffice : 
Man shall not hide himself from love. 



Poems 


■March 26 - 


She was, to all strangers, an absolutely uninterest¬ 
ing woman; but her family knew her merits. 

Fated to be Free. 


- March 27 - 

Let me lose mine own life 

For Thy sake, and put on Thine; 
Though it be with dangers rife, 

In the ending it shall shine. 

Mine own life —lay it low; 

Let me Thy disciple be ; 

Bear Thy cross, and even so 
Live to God, and rest in Thee. 

Poems. 


6 S 














March 25 


ANNUNCIATION. 


March 26 


March 27 
















- March 28- 

Caroline seemed bent on pleasing and winning 
all suffrages for herself. Miss Black was never try¬ 
ing to please, though she was often trying to do 
good. It seemed to be as essential to her happiness 
to find people on whom she could lavish her care 
and attentive love, as it was to Caroline to excite 
and receive the affection of others. 

Studies for Stories. 

- March 29 - 


I wish, and I wish that the spring would go faster, 
Nor long summer bide so late; 

And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, 
For some things are ill to wait. 

Songs of Seven. 


March 30 


“ Take courage ”— courage ! ay, my purple peer, 

I will take courage; for thy Tyrian rays 
Refresh me to the heart, and strangely dear 
And healing is thy praise. 

Honors. 




70 























► 


March 28 





March 29 


March 30 

















March 31 


Now winter past, the white-thorn bower 
Breaks forth and buds down all the glen; 
Now spreads the leaf and grows the flower: 
So grows the life of God, in men. 


Poems. 

















































t 




































































































3tpriL 


A shady freshness, chafers whirring, 

A little piping of leaf-hid birds ; 

A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring, 

A cloud to the eastward snowy as curds. 

Bare grassy slopes, where kids are tethered 
Round valleys like nests all ferny-lined; 

Round hills, with fluttering tree-tops feathered, 
Swell high in their freckled robes behind. 

A rose-flush tender, a thrill, a quiver, 

When golden gleams to the tree-tops glide 5 

A flashing edge for the milk-white river, 

The beck, a river — with still sleek tide. 

Divided. 


75 










April i 


What change has made the pastures sweet 
And reached the daisies at my feet, 

And cloud that wears a golden hem ? 

This lovely world, the hills, the sward — 
They all look fresh, as if our Lord 
But yesterday had finished them. 

Reflections. 


- April 2 - 

% 

As on this day in the times of yore, 

A King forth fared to His wond’rous ride; 
And a multitude that went before, 

And a multitude that follow’d, cried, 

“ Hosanna.” 

Mourner and Monarch, Thy tears are dry; 

But the song of the palms shall ne’er be o’er, 
For the multitudes yet following cry, 

As the multitude gone on before, “ Hosanna.” 

Poems. 

- April 3 - 

It was a sweet April day. All the cherry-trees 
were in full flower, and the young thickets in the 
garden were bending low with lilac-blossom, but 
Peter was miserable. 

For what is April, and what is a half-holiday, and 
what indeed is life itself when one has lost perhaps 
the most excellent top that boy ever spun, and the 
loudest hummer ? 

Fated to be Free. 


76 










April i 












April 3 


H 

. i 





77 


















April 4 


I heard the chanting waters flow, 

The cushat’s note, the bee’s low humming, — 
Then turned the hedge, and did not know, — 
How could I ? — that my time was coming. 

Songs with Preludes. 


- April 5 ——- 

When I hear the waters fretting. 

When I see the chestnut letting 
All her lovely blossom falter down, I think, “ Alas 
the day! ” 

Once with magical sweet singing, 

Blackbirds set the woodland ringing, 

That awakes no more while April hours wear them¬ 
selves away. 

Songs on the Voices of Birds. 

-— April 6 —- 

Thy body done to death below, 

Thou still dost freely give; 

Thy blood, which is Thy life, bestow, 

And in that life I live. 

Jesu, my Lord, I Thee confess, 

Thy love my heaven will be; 

Thy care I crave, Thy name I bless, . 

And wish myself with Thee. 

Poems. 


78 

















- April 4 





April 5 


% 


April 6 

















April 7 


By the pangs God look’d not on, 
And the world dared not see; 
By all redeeming wonders won 
Through that dread mystery; — 
Lord, receive once more the sigh 
From the accursed tree — 

“ Sacred Love of God most high, 
remember me! ” 


Poems. 






- Ap)il 8 - 

It is the noon of night, 

And the world’s Great Light 
Gone out, she widow-like doth carry her: 

The moon hath veiled her face, 

Nor looks on that dread place 
Where He lieth dead in sealed sepulchre ; 

And heaven and hades, emptied, lend 
Their flocking multitudes to watch and wait the end. 

Contrasted Songs. 

-—- April 9 - 

In regal quiet deep, 

Lo, One new waked from sleep 1 
Behold, He standeth in the rock-hewn door! 

Thy children shall not die, — 

Peace, peace, thy Lord is by ! 

He liveth ! —they shall live for evermore. 

Peace! lo, He lifts a priestly hand, 

And blesseth all the sons of men in every land. 

Contrasted Songs. 


8o 














April 7 


Aptil 8 




April 9 
















April io 


But ah! to stay, and stay, 

And let that moon of April wane itself away, 
And let the lovely May 
Make ready all her buds for June. 

Songs of the Night Watches . 


- April 11 - 1 

/ 

What! Though I have all sorts of good food in 
my father’s house, and plenty of it, shall it not still 
be a joy to me to buy a whole pot of plum-jam with 
my ninepence ? Certainly it shall, and with gener¬ 
ous ardor I shall call my younger brothers and sis¬ 
ters together to my little room, where in appreciative 
silence we shall hang over it, while I dig it out with 
the butt-end of my tooth-brush. 

Fated to be Free. 

- April 12- 1 


Ugliness of the right sort is a kind of beauty. It 
has some of the best qualities of beauty — it attracts 
observation and fixes the memory. 

Off the Skelligs. 


82 














April io 





































April ii 









April 12 

























8 ; 





























April 13 






“ I cannot be such a prig as to pretend that I can 
think of nothing but philanthropy. ‘ There’s a mix- 
ter, sir,’ as Bolton said ; ‘ you can’t expect to find no 
tares at all in the best bag of seed corn.’” 

Sarah De Berenger. 


- April 14- 

And can this be my own world ? 

’T is all gold and snow, 

Save where scarlet waves are hurled 
Down yon gulf below. 

’T is thy world, ’t is my world, 

City and mead and shore, 

For he that hath his own world 
Hath many worlds more. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 

- April 15- 


“ It’s lucky,” remarked Lancy, “ that being a girl 
is n’t infectious. If I thought I should catch it of 
you, Mary, I would never come near you or any 
other girl any more.” 

“ yf course you would n’t,” said Mary, with con¬ 
viction. 

Don John. 


84 















— April 14 -— 






















April 16 


Pure with all faithful passion, fair 
With tender smiles that come and go ; 
And comforting as April air 
After the snow. 


Poems. 


- April 17-- *4 

O that the mist which veileth my To-come 
Would so dissolve and yield unto mine eyes 
A worthy path 1 I’d count not wearisome 
Long toil, nor enterprise, 

But strain to reach it; ay, with wrestlings stout 
And hopes that even in the dark will grow 
(Like plants in dungeons, reaching feelers out), 
And ploddings wary and slow. 

Honors. 


April 18 


No one feels more keenly than she does that it 
is not charity, not a good work, in a man to leave 
from his own family what he does not want and can 
no longer use, thinking that it is just as acceptable to 
God as if he had given it in his lifetime, when he 
liked it, enjoyed it — when, in short, it was his own. 

Fated to be Free. 




86 





























-- April 19- 

What is thy thought ? There is no miracle ? 
There is a great one, which thou hast not read, 

And never shalt escape. Thyself, O man, 

Thou art the miracle. Ay, thou thyself, 

Being in the world and of the world, thyself 
Hast breathed in breath from Him that made the 
world. 

Thou art thy Father’s copy of Himself, — 

Thou art thy Father’s miracle. 

Story of Doom. 

- April 20 - 


Call the sweet winds of heaven and bid them blow, 
And call the clouds to drop in gracious dew ; 

Let Thy sap rise in this dry branch and flow — 
(For yet’t is Thine) — Rise, rise, in it anew. 

Poems. 


—— - April 21 — -- 

What work so high as mine, 
Interpreter betwixt the world and man, 
Nature’s ungathered pearls to set and shrine, 
The mystery she wraps her in to scan; 

Her unsyllabic voices to combine, 

And serve her with such love as poets can; 
With mortal words, her chant of praise to bind, 
Then die, and leave the poem to mankind ? 

The Star's Monument. 


8S 











April 19 


April 20 


April 2 t — 

















89 

















April 22 


“ That’s nothing,” he answered, uttering a great 
truth without perceiving its importance, “ things are 
perfectly different, and are always reckoned so ac¬ 
cording to the person who does them.” 

Don John. 


April 23- 


Our own faces, seen suddenly, will sometimes tell 
us things concerning ourselves that we did not sus¬ 
pect before. 

Off the Skelligs. 


April 24 


Children, ay, forsooth, 

They bring their own love with them when they come, 
But if they come not there is peace and rest; 

The pretty lambs I and yet she cries for more: 

Why the world’s full of them, and so is heaven — 
They are not rare. 


Supper at the Mill. 





























- April 25 ——- 

What though unmarked the happy workman toil, 

And break unthanked of man the stubborn clod ? 

It is enough, for sacred is the soil, 

Dear are the hills of God. 

Far better in its place the lowliest bird 

Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song, 

Than that a seraph strayed should take the word 
And sing His glory wrong. 

Honors. 


April 2 6- 


He was indeed a most inconveniently religious 
man ; his religion was of a very expensive kind, and 
was all mixed up with his philanthropy, as if one 
could not be religious at all without loving those 
whom God loved, and as if one could not love them 
without serving them to the best of one’s power. 

Fated to be Free . 


* - —— April 27- - -—- 

He always reminds me of an onion (for we all, as 
it is said, resemble in some degree one or other of the 
inferior animals). His conscience is wrapped round 
with as many layers to cover it from the light as the 
heart of an onion. The outside layer is avarice. 
Yes; very thick. Peel that off, you come to a layer 
of self-conceit; peel again, you come to his scruples 
— a sort of mock conscience. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


0 

















April 25 



ST. MARK. 

















April 26 




April 27 

















April 28 - 


Fain would I thy margins know, 

Land of work, and land of snow; 

Land of life, whose rivers flow 
On, and on, and stay not. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


April 29-- 


When I remember something promised me, 

But which I never had, nor can have now, 
Because the promiser we no more see 
In countries that accord with mortal vow, 
When I remember this, I mourn, — but yet, 

My happier days are not the days when I forget. 

Songs with Preludes. 


April 30 


Give Thou us more. We look 
For more. The heart that took 
All spring-tide for itself were empty still; 

Its yearning is not spent 
Nor silenced in content, 

Till He that all things.filleth doth it sweetly fill. 

Poems. 


94 












April 28 



April 29 





April 30 









































• • 


























- ft — 

W hen in a May-day hush 
Chanteth the Missel-thrush 
The harp o’ the heart makes answer with murmurous 
stirs ; 

When Robin-redbreast sings, 

We think on budding springs, 

And Culvers when they coo are love’s remembrancers. 

Songs on the Voices of Birds. 

All the clouds about the sun lay up in golden creases, 
(Merry rings the maiden’s voice that sings at dawn 
of day;) 

Lambkins woke and skipped around to dry their 
dewy fleeces, 

So sweetly as she carolled, all on a morn of May. 

Songs of the Night Watches . 

The sky was blue above; a cup of azure light 
without a cloud; the trees were one mass of pure 
white blossom, and under foot the ground was cov¬ 
ered with the glossy flat leaves and yellow astral flow¬ 
ers of the celandine. A blue and yellow world — all 
pure white and pale glory. Was there no red at 
all in it?—Nothing to give a hint of coming damask 
roses and the intense pure blush of the carnation ? 

Doit John. 


97 





» 

-- May i - 

Give us Thyself. The May 
Dureth so short a day; 

Youth and the spring are over all too soon; 

Content us while they last, 

Console us for them past, 

Thou with whom bides for ever life, and love, and 
noon. 

Poems. 


~ May 2 — 


Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, 

Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall — 

A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, 

And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! 
Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its 
measure, 

God that is over us all I 

Songs of Seven* 



Next to the power of standing outside one’s self, 
and looking at me as other folks see me, the most 
remarkable is this of (by the insight of genius and 
imagination) becoming you. The first makes one 
sometimes only too reasonable, too humble; the 
second warms the heart and enriches the soul, for 
it gives the charms of selfhood to beings not our¬ 
selves. 


Fated to be Free. 


98 


















ST. PHILIP & ST. JAMES. 


May i 











99 

















“ She’s not at all an irreligious woman, though she 
has lived to be ninety-four. I don’t know how she 
reconciles that with ‘ the days of our life,’ you know, 
‘ are three score years and ten.’ At the same time,” 
she continued, falling into thought, “ I am quite clear 
that it would not be right of her to hasten matters.” 

Sarah De Berenger . 


- May 5 


Somewhere, in the counsels known on high, 
Certain as the southing of a star, 

Stands the hour writ down when I shall die. 
Oh, to go where all my good things are, 
Calmly as the southing of a star. 

Poems. 


- May 6 — 


A great many people think of religion as if it was 
a game that they had to play with an august oppo¬ 
nent,—a game at which both could not win, and 
yet they actually think they can play it unfairly. 
They want to cheat. But in that grand and awful 
game, it cannot be said that either wins unless 
both do. 


100 


■> 


Off the Skelligs. 






























— - May 7 - 

As the veil of broidery fine 
For the temple wrought of old, 

Dropped before the awful shrine, 

Bloomed in purple, gleamed in gold; 

So the broidered earth and sky, 

Ever present, always near, 

Charm the soul and fill the eye — 

Marvellous, matchless, beauteous, dear. 

Poems. 

May 8 - 

O fair, O fine, O lot to be desired! 

Early and late my heart appeals to me, 

And says, ‘ O work, O will — Thou man, be fired 
To earn this lot,’ — she says, ‘ I would not be 
A worker for mine own bread, or one hired 
For mine own profit. O, I would be free 
To work for others; love so earned of them 
Should be my wages and my diadem. 

The Star's Monument. 

— --- May 9 —- 


How natural is joy, my heart! 

How easy after sorrow! 

For once, the best is come that hope 
Promised them “ to-morrow.” 

Songs of the Night Watches. 


102 


























May io 


When Laura saw this place in the glen, she per¬ 
ceived plainly that there was no one with whom she 
might be humbly happy and poor — not even a 
plumber! 

This form of human sorrow — certainly one of the 
worst— is not half enough pitied by the happy. 

Fated to be Free. 


- May 11- 

“ Man is made of what he eats. * This is the stuff 
our heroes are made of,’ as the Prince of Wales said 
when he peeped into the Eton boys’ ‘ sock shop/ 
Fetch, who was listening, burst into tears, and said, 
‘Alas!’” 

“ Why, Don John ? ” 

“ Because he thought it was so good of the Prince 
of Wales to take notice that we are made of what 
we eat, and because he remembered that asses are 
too.” Don John. 

- —May 12- 


’T is yours, not mine, to pluck out of your breast 
Some human truth, whose workings recondite 
Were unattired in words, and manifest 
And hold it forth to light. 

Honors. 











- May io 





















May 13 


Those to whom music is always welcome must 
have neither an empty heart nor a remorseful con¬ 
science, nor keen recollections, nor a foreboding 
soul. 

Fated to be Free. 


- May 14- 

/For life is one, and in its warp and woof 
There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair, 

And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet 
Where there are sombre colors. It is true 
That we have wept. But oh ! this thread of gold, 
We would not have it tarnish; let us turn 
Oft and look back upon the wondrous web, 

And when it shineth sometimes we shall know 
That memory is possession. 

Songs with Preludes. 

- May 15-— 


Laura, like most people, was in the habit of think¬ 
ing that charity was all giving and no receiving, 
instead of which, real and pure charity is always 
both. It is the false charity that gets no return. 
To the true that promise yet holds good — “ He that 
watereth shall be watered also himself.” 

Laura Richmond'. 
































May 16 


If you have a piano, one note of which in the 
treble is mute, not one tune can be played on it, — 
no music worth having can be drawn from it, with¬ 
out making the defect manifest; and yet the note is 
not actively offensive, it merely does not sound. 

Now, call the piano a family, and call the Cum- 
berer a faulty note, and you at once see the harm 
she does; she makes the tune imperfect when it does 
not sound, and when it does sound, jars. 

The Cumberers. 


May 17 


The heavens are better than this earth below, 
They are of more account and far more dear. 
We will look up, for all most sweet and fair, 
Most pure, most excellent, is garnered there. 

The Mariner's Cave. 


— May 18 


Thou art gone up, a throne to share, 

Yet doth Thy man’s heart, even there, 
Partaker of man’s yearning care, 

Love to the end. 

The odors of Thine incense fill 
The Temple courts, the heavenly hill, 
Offered with prayers of saints that still 
Thither ascend. 

Poems. 


108 













109 






















May 19 


Leave the garden walls, where blow 
Apple-blossoms pink, and low 
Ordered beds of tulips fine. 

Seek the blossoms made divine 
With a scent that is their soul. 

Married Lavers. 


— May 20 - 


That that is, is; and when it is, that is the reason 
that it is. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


- May 21 • 


I have often thought how much easier it is to 
write fiction well than reality. In fiction, poetical 
justice is always done; in real life, the justice is done, 
but it is not always apparent. 

Studies for Stories. 


ixo 

































—May 22 


The wild ass tossing his mane in the desert is so 

[ different from the flounder flopping on his mud- 
bank, that he cannot hope to understand him and his 
fashions. 

Don John. 

May 23- 4 

Ah! little bird (he thought), most patient bird. 
Breasting thy speckled eggs the long day through, 
By so much as my reason is preferred 
Above thine instinct, I my work would do 
Better than thou dost thine. Thou hast not stirred 
This hour thy wing. Ah! russet bird, I sue 
For a like patience to wear through these hours — 
Bird on thy nest among the apple-flowers. 

The Star's Monument . 

--- May 24-- 1 

You see the vices and virtues have got overhauled 
again, and sorted differently to suit our convenience. 
Stealing’s no worse probly in the eyes of our Maker 
than lying and slandering; not so bad, mayhap, as a 
deep sweer. But folks air so tenacious like, they 
must have every stick and stone respected that they 
reckon theirs. 

Fated to be Free . 



112 























May 24 

































_____ ] TcLV 2 £ ■ 

There is something very pathetic in the worship 
of the poor and rustic. They often think they oblige 
the clergyman by coming to church; and the old 
have a touching humbleness about them; they feel 
a sincere sense of how worthless they are in this 
world, which they could hardly have attained unless 
the young had helped them to it. The rich mix the 
world with their prayers, so do the poor; thus — 
they feel that they come and say them with their 
betters. Sarah De Berenger. 

- May 26- 

And deign, O Watcher, with the sleepless brow, 

Pathetic in its yearning — deign reply: 

Is there, O is there aught that such as Thou 
Wouldst take from such as I ? 

Are there no briers across Thy pathway thrust ? 

Are there no thorns that compass it about ? 

Nor any stones that Thou wilt deign to trust 
My hands to gather out ? 

Poems. 

- May 27-- 


Of course, none of us would like to die now, or 
soon, or at any specified time; and yet, if we were 
told to-day, that we were all going to live for five 
hundred years, I don’t think we should like it. We 
should get restless and fretful as children do if they 
pass the time when they should sleep. 

Off the Skelligs. 


114 

















May 25 




May 26 



- May 27 























—May 28 


For all Christ died, and once for all, 

No souls in Him are lost; 

But’t is for each the flame must fall, 

The dower at Pentecost. 

Poems. 


May 29 


Her face betokened all things dear and good, 

The light of somewhat yet to come was there 
Asleep, and waiting for the opening day, 

When childish thoughts, like flowers, would drift 
away. 

Margaret in the Zebec. 


- May 30 - 

O velvet bee, you ’re a dusty fellow, 

You’ve powdered your legs with gold ! 

O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow, 
Give me your money to hold ! 

O columbine, open your folded wrapper. 
Where two twin turtle-doves dwell! 

O cuckoo pint, toll me the purple clapper 
That hangs in your clear green bell 1 

Songs of Seven. 































- May 31 


“ Bless you, whether their folks air rich or poor, 
they never think at that age what it costs to clothe 
’em. I never found with my boys that they’d done 
climbing for crows’ eggs till such time as they bought 
their own breeches. After that, trees were nought 
but lumber, and crows were carrion.” 

Fated to be Free. 






118 











» 

Il 9 


















































































































S'une. 


--- 

The slow dusk had begun to gather; large flowers 
of the bind-weed, trailing over the low wayside hedge, 
were mere specks of milky whiteness ; he could but 
just distinguish between them and the dog-roses, 
could hardly detect the honeysuckle but for its fra¬ 
grance. 

Sarah De Berenger. 

How beautiful those tall white lilies were. They 
enjoyed themselves in secret all through the night, 
gave out their scent, drank in the dew, and never let 
men and women find out that the night-time was 
their life and their day. The great evening prim¬ 
roses, too, white and yellow, were in their glory, and 
it seemed as if they also were keeping it secret, and 
still. 

Don John. 


121 



An empty sky, a world of heather, 

Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom; 

We two among them wading together, 
Shaking out honey, treading perfume. 

Crowds ot bees are giddy with clover, 

Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet, 
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over, 
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet. 

Poems. 


-— June 2 


She had a soul full of unused treasures of emotion, 
and pure, clear depths of passion that as yet slum¬ 
bered unstirred. If her heart was a lute, its highest 
and lowest chords had never been sounded hitherto, 
This also she was aware of, and she knew what their 
music would be like when it came. 

Fated to be Free. 


- June 3 -—- 

It is a fearful thing for a young man to be thought 
a prig — almost as bad, so to speak, as being sus¬ 
pected of burglary. What then is a prig? A prig 
is one who makes, and prides himself on making, 
such confident and high profession of his opinions, 
whatever these may be, that though he should act 
upon them never so consistently, his words will, not¬ 
withstanding, tower above and seem to dwarf his 
actions. 


Sarah De Berenger. 


























- June 4 - 

I have long noticed that, of all modern people, 
the Irish suffer least, and the French most, from the 
misery of envy. The poor Frenchman would rather 
all were down than that any should have what he 
has not; but the poor Irishman, wasteful and not 
covetous, could not do without something to admire. 
One of these two takes in anguish through his eyes, 
whenever he casts them on beauty or riches not his; 
the other takes in consolation through his eyes. 

Don John. 

- June 5 - —— 4 


We must not only consider whether what we do is 
a pleasure in some instances, but whether we design 
it to be a pleasure to our families. 

Studies for Stories. 


June 6 


Fanny did not know that sometimes people call 
their discontent aspiration, as being a prettier word, 
and meaning a more respectable thing. 

Dr. Deane's Governess. 


124 



















- June 7 ———— 

Some people are fond of making out that a future 
state is to be very like this, only better, and that we 
are to have back again what we have lost here. I 
don ? t agree to that. We want something better and 
different, not better and like. I consider that for a 
permanent life we want many new powers, and X 
trust the Almighty that we shall have them — one 
of them is the power to be unwearied by possession 
and continuance. 

Off the Skelligs. 

-- —June 8 - 

Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, 
the owlet hoot; 

Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim be¬ 
hind the tree, O! 

The dropping thorn makes white the grass, O sweet¬ 
est lass, and sweetest lass ; 

Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the 
croft with me, O ! 

Songs of the Night Watches. 


— 4 - June 9 


Thou hast been alway good to me and mine 
Since our first father by transgression fell. 
Through all Thy sorest judgments love doth shine — 
Lord, of a truth, Thou doest all things well. 

Poems. 


126 
















- 



















June 7 






















\ 









- June 8 *- 






















June 9 








































Some people never really have anything. It is 
not only that they can get no good out of things 
(that is common even among those who are able 
both to have and to hold), but that they don’t know 
how to reign over their possessions and appropriate 
them. 

Fated to be Free. 

June 11- 


“ It’s always a graceful thing to unbend,” as the 
gold stick-in-waiting said when he balanced a pep¬ 
permint-drop on his nose, as he stood behind the 
queen’s chair. 

Don John. 


- June 12--- v - ■ 

There is nothing like action to show a man what 
he really is. Till the decisive moment came he had 
not perhaps the remotest suspicion that he cared for 
human life in the abstract; and here he stands drip¬ 
ping, having risked his own to save that of an abso¬ 
lute stranger. For the future he knows all. He 
perceives the awful and mysterious oneness of hu¬ 
manity, how it draws the units to the whole. He is 
not independent, as he may have thought; he is a 
part of all. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


128 


















June 13 



“ Shall not the Fashioner command His work ? 
And who am I, that, if He whisper, ‘ Rise, 

Go forth upon Mine errand,’ should reply, 

‘ Lord, God, I love the woman and her sons, — 
I love not scorning: I beseech Thee, God, 

Have me excused.’ ” 

A Story of Doom. 

--— June 14 —-—- 


Reverend as Lear, when, lorn of shelter, he 

Stood, with his old white head, surprised at fate 
Alone as Galileo, when, set free, 

Before the stars he mused disconsolate. 

A Snow Mountain. 


—-- June f 5 ————— - 

You are a well, whereon I, gazing, see 
Reflections of the upper heavens—a well 
From whence come deep, deep echoes up to me 
Some underwave’s low swell. 

I cannot soar into the heights you show, 

Nor dive among the deeps that you reveal; 
But it is much that high things are to know, 
That deep things are to feel. 


Honors . 






















-June 13 




— June 14 


















June 16 



O sleep, we are beholden to thee, sleep, 

Thou bearest angels to us in the night, 

Saints out of heaven with palms. Seen by thy light 
Sorrow is some old tale that goeth not deep; 

Love is a pouting child. 

Sleep. 


-—r-- June 17-— 

The man with no ear for music feels his sense of 
justice outraged when people shudder while his 
daughter sings. Why won’t they listen to her songs 
as to one another’s ? There is no difference. 

With a like feeling those who have hardly any 
sense of humor are half offended when others laugh, 
while they seem to be shut out for not perceiving 
any cause. Occasionally knowing themselves to be 
sensible people, they think it evident that their not 
seeing the joke must be because it is against them. 

Fated to be Free. 

- June 1 8 -- -—— 


Money will make us work, but money will not 
make us give our hearts to the work, — nothing but 
love for the work or real good principle can make 
us do that. 

Emily's Ambition. 


132 
























June 19 


He was prodigal of his speech, did not save up 
his thoughts as if he expected them one day to fail. 
He was not afraid to be fully alive now, lest he 
might flag afterwards. With him it was always 
spring-tide and full moon. 

Off the Skelligs. 


June 20 


When our thoughts are born, 
Though they be good and humble, one should mind 
How they are reared, or some will go astray 
And shame their mother. Cain and Abel both 
Were only once removed from innocence. 

Gladys and her Island. 


June 2 1 


The most joyous and gladsome natures are often 
most keenly alive to impressions of reverence, and 
wonder, and awe. Emily’s mind longed and craved 
to annex itself to all things fervent, deep, and real. 
As she walked on the common grass, she thought 
the better of it because the feet of Christ had trod¬ 
den it also. 

Fated to be Free. 


134 













June 19 










% 















* 








June 20 




















June 22 


That high song 
Of the heart, it doth belong 
To the hearers. Not a whit, 

Though a chief musician heard, 

Could he make a tune for it 

Though a lute full deftly strung, 

And the sweetest bird e’er sung, 

Could have tried it. 

Contrasted Songs. 

■—- June 23- 


“ There are many people in the world who don’t 
know what they really are till circumstances show 
them,” “And a very good thing, too,” she ex¬ 
claimed, “for some of us. If the pepper-castor 
could know what it really was, it would always be 
sneezing its top off.” 

Sarah De Berenger. 


- June 24- 

Midsummer night, not dark, not light, 
Dusk all the scented air, 

I ’ll e’en go forth to one I love, 

And learn how he doth fare. 

O the ring, the ring, my dear, for me, 
The ring was a world too fine, 

I wish it had sunk in a forty-fathom sea, 
Or ever thou mad’st it mine. 


Poems. 


























June 22 













June 2 3 


— 








































June 24 


— 


NAT. OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST. 


























— 


137 


























- June 25- 

Many a delicate invalid, who overtasks herself, 
thinks herself, notwithstanding, a burden, while 
teaching, by her example, the most improving les¬ 
sons of patience and resignation; and many an 
awkward, yet warm-hearted and eager girl, weeping 
over her various mistakes and short-comings, in 
her anxious attempts to be kind and to do a great 
deal in a little time, has been ready to take to her¬ 
self the appellation, false indeed in her case, of a 
Cumberer. 

The Cumberers. 

- June 26-■- 

It may be there are many in like case: 

They give themselves, and are in misery 
Because the gift is small, and doth not make 
The world by so much better as they fain 
Would have it. ’T is a fault; but, as for us, 

Let us not blame them. Maybe, ’t is a fault 
More kindly looked on by The Majesty 
Than our best virtues are. Why, what are we! 
What have we given, and what have we desired 
To give the world? Monitions of the Unseen. 

- June 27- 

Who does not like to watch the stately white 
cloud lying becalmed over the woods, and waiting in 
a rapture of rest for a wind to come and float it on ? 
Yet we might not have cared to see the cloud take 
her rest, but for the sweetness of rest to ourselves. 
The plough turned over on one side under a hedge, 
while the ploughman rests at noon, might hint to us 
what is the key-note of that chord which makes us 
think the rest of the cloud so fair. 

Fated to be Free* 


133 


















—June 25 



















June 26 








♦ 











June 27 



















June 2 8 


It would be very unlucky for cats if people in a 
body should discover how much more jolly it was to 
be out in the warm golden mist of moonlight, when 
all was so fresh and sweet, than tucked up in their 
heated bedrooms under the low ceiling that shuts out 


the stars. 


Don John. 


-- June 29- 

Ah! thou art no more thine own. 

Mine, mine, O love ! Tears gather ’neath my lids,— 
Sorrowful tears for thy lost liberty, 

Because it was so sweet. Thy liberty, 

That yet, O love, thou wouldst not have again. 

No ; all is right. But who can give, or bless, 

Or take a blessing, but there comes withal 
Some pain ? 

Songs with Preludes. 


June 30 


Quoth the ocean, “ Dawn ! O fairest, clearest, 
Touch me with thy golden fingers bland; 
For I have no smile till thou appearest 
For the lovely land.” 


Winstanley. 













yune 28 











PETER. 


June 29 



■ ... . 





























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































SFuIp. 


A meadow where the grass was deep, 

Rich, square, and golden to the view, 

A belt of elms with level sweep 
About it gre\fc. 

The sun beat down on it, the line 
Of shade was clear beneath the trees ; 

There, by a clustering eglantine, 

We sat at ease. 

And O the buttercups 1 that field 

O’ the cloth of gold, where pennons swam — 
Where France set up his lilied shield, 

His oriflamb. 

And Henry’s lion-standard rolled : 

What was it to their matchless sheen, 

Their million million drops of gold 
Among the green! 


The Letter L. 






July i 




It is a delightful help merely not to be hindered. 

• Studies for Stories. 


July 2 


Your best and most thorough charity is that which 
tends to make, and ends in making, its object inde¬ 
pendent of charity; which, in fact, works to its own 
extinction. 

A Sister's Bye-Hours . 


- July 3 


He had no pride; he did n’t mind shouting for a 
poor man. Preached just as long and just as loud, 
he did, in bad weather, when he had nobbut a few 
old creeturs and poor Simon Graves the cripple for 
congregation, as when the most chiefest draper and 
his lady walked over from the town to attend. 

Sarah De Berenger . 


144 


























July 2 


— 













July 3 












145 




















July a 


Our heroes die and drop away from us; 

Oblivion folds them ’neath her dusky wing, 

Fair copies wasted to the hungering world. 

Save them. We fall so low for lack of them, 
That many ,of us think scorn of honest trade, 

And take no pride in our own shops ; who care 
Only to quit a calling, will not make 
The calling what it might b£ ; who despise 
Their work, Fate laughs at, and doth let the work 
Dull and degrade them. Gladys and Tier Island. 


July 5 



The poetical temperament of Emily’s mind made 
her frequently change places with others, and, in¬ 
deed, become in thought those others — fears, feel¬ 
ings, and all. 

“ What are you crying for, Emily ? ” her mother 
had once said to her, when she was a little child. 

“I’m not Emily now,” she answered; “I’m the 
poor little owl, and I can’t help crying because that 
cruel Smokey barked at me and frightened me ” 

Fated to be Free . 


July 6 


“What’s the joke?” as the ghost asked of the 
laughing hyena. “ Dear sir,” he answered, “ you 
can’t see a joke in the dark.” 

Don John. 


146 


















yuly 6 

















“ Far-seeing heart! if that be all, 

The happy things that did not fall,” 

I sighed, “ from every coppice call. 

They never from that garden went. 
Behold their joy, so comfort thee, 

Behold the blossom and the bee, 

For they are yet as good and free 
As when poor Eve was innocent.” 

Scholar and Carpenter. 


- "July 8 


We wish for more in life, rather than for more of 
it; and if it were to contain no new elements, I do not 
think the human race (if it might consider the ques¬ 
tion for itself as a whole) would care to have it 
lengthened. 

Off the Skelligs. 


yuly 9 - 


She soon began to feel low-spirited and restless, 
while, like a potato-plant in a dark cellar, she put 
forth long runners towards the light, and no light 
was to be found. This homely simile ought to be 
forgiven, because it is such a good one. 

Fated to be Free. 


























July io 


Man is the miracle in nature. God 
Is the One Miracle to man. Behold, 

“ There is a God,” thou sayest. Thou sayest well: 
In that thou sayest all- To Be is more 
Of wonderful, than being, to have wrought, 

Or reigned, or rested. 

A Story of Doom. 


— July 11 -— 


Shall I be slave to every noble soul, 

Study the dead, and to their spirits bend j 
Or learn to read my own heart’s folded scroll, 
And make self-rule my end ? 

Honors. 


---- July 12 —- 

I have heard it said that the envious person, 
though he is made miserable by his neighbor’s pros¬ 
perity, does nothing to diminish that prosperity, — 
he is, in short, no one’s enemy but his own. The 
envious person is, in truth, his own enemy, but he 
is as truly the enemy of every one whom he envies. 
This passion, like all others, must seek to display 
itself in action. They who bitterly envy cannot pos¬ 
sibly refrain from showing it and acting on it. 

My Great-Aunt's Picture. 


T 50 















July io 





yuly ii 






July 12 


x 5* 












I have learned to notice, that it is both natural 
and inevitable, that those who have no settled occu¬ 
pation themselves, should be those most prone to 
find fault with the work of others. 

The Cumberers. 


July 14 - 

O mother Eve, who wert beguiled of old, 

Thy blood is in thy children, thou art yet 
Their fate and copy; with thy milk they drew 
The immortal want of morning; but thy day 
Dawned and was over, and thy children know 
Contentment never, nor continuance long. 

For even thus it is with them : the day 
Waxeth, to wane anon, and a long night 
Leaves the dark heart unsatisfied with stars. 

Letters on Life and The Morning. 

July 15 - 

Scorn of self is bitter wor^,— 

Each of us has felt it now : 

Bluest skies she counted mirk, 
Self-betrayed of eyes and brow; 

As for me, I went my way, 

And a better man drew nigh, 

Fain to earn, with long essay, 

What the winner’s hand threw by. 

Contrasted Songs. 


152 

























- July 16 

The child is to the father and mother, who im¬ 
parted life to him, and who see his youth, the most 
excellent consolation that nature can afford them for 
the loss of their own youth, and for the shortness of 
life in themselves; but if a mother is therefore con¬ 
vinced that her child is a consoler to those who have 
none, he is sure, at some time or other, to be con¬ 
sidered an unmitigated bore. 

Fated to be Free. 

- July 17- 

Consider it 

(This outer world we tread on) as a harp, — 

A gracious instrument on whose fair strings 
We learn those airs we shall be set to play 
When mortal hours are ended. Why shouldst thou 
Lie grovelling ? More is won than e’er was lost: 
Inherit. Let thy day be to thy night 
A teller of good tidings. Let thy praise 
Go up as birds go up that, when they wake, 

Shake off the dew and soar. Dominion. 

- July 18- 


We often think we are of great importance to cer¬ 
tain people ; that they must be thinking of us and 
our affairs, that they watch our actions and shape 
their course accordingly. In general it is not so; 
we are quite mistaken. 

Don John. 


*54 














July 16 



•■•^vrar^garAa 


i55 



















Sympathy is a skittish and perverse nymph ; de¬ 
mand too much and she gives nothing. When a 
soldier has lost his arm, if he were to go whining 
about the world lamenting over it, everybody would 
despise him ; but if he holds his tongue, and carries 
his empty sleeve carelessly, all the girls are in love 
with him. 

Off the Skelligs. 


yuly 20 - 


The human mind is always inexorable in demand¬ 
ing a motive for all human actions. It is only him¬ 
self that each man permits to act without one, and 
avails himself of the privilege with astonishing fre¬ 
quency. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


—--— yuly 2 1 —-— 


It is a woman’s duty, if she has many lovers, to set 
them free from vain hopes, by choosing as soon 
among them as she can, even if she make some sac¬ 
rifice to do it, with only a sincere preference for one 
and no great enthusiasm. 


Don yohn. 















July 19 








July 20 






July 21 








\ 





















July 22 


— 


Nor do they well whose work 
Is still to feed and shelter them and theirs, 

Get gain, and gathered store it, to think scorn 
Of those who work for a world (no wages paid 
By a Master hid in light), and sent alone 
To face a laughing multitude, whose eyes 
Are full of damaging pity, that forbears 
To tell the harmless laborer, “ Thou art mad.” 

A Story of Doom. 

- July 23- 

Soft falls the dew, stars tremble through, 
Where lone he sits apart. 

Would I might steal his grief away 
To hide in mine own heart. 

Would, would’t were shut in yon blossom fair, 
The sorrow that bows thy head, 

Then — I would gather it, to thee unaware, 

And break my heart in thy stead. 

Poems. 


July 24 


“ Why, he’s as good as a knife that has pared 
onions, sir, — everything it touches relishes of ’em.” 

Fated to be Free. 

















July 22 - 










Ju 23 














July 24 
















July 25 




Fools are not rare, either male or female; as they 
arrange the world and its ways in great measure, it 
is odd that they do not understand one another 
better. 

Fated to be Free. 


yuly 26 


And some were cross and shivered, and her dames 
Were weary and right hard to please; but she 
Felt like a beggar suddenly endowed 
With a warm cloak to ’fend her from the cold. 

“ For, come what will,” she said, “ I had to-day .” 

Gladys and her Island . 


yuly 27 


There is nothing so sweet as duty, and all the best 
pleasures of life come in the wake of duties done. 

Don John. 


160 






















ST. JAMES. 
























July 26 













































July 27 

















































































What a bore it is, that the dull and uneducated 
and unimaginative should possess a dogged con¬ 
tempt for danger, and a kind of stupid fearlessness 
that we are never to have. I do not see how a 
highly imaginative man can have much animal 
courage. 

Off the Skelligs. 


July 29 


Is there such path already made to fit 
The measure of my foot ? It shall atone 
For much, if I at length may light on it 
And know it for mine own. 

Honors. 


— -— July 30———-‘— 

Nothing, perhaps, differs more than the amount of 
affection felt by different people ; there is no gauge 
for it — language cannot convey it. Yet instinctive 
perception shows us where it is great. Some feel 
little, and show all that little becomingly; others 
feel much, and reveal scarcely anything; but, on the 
whole, men are not deceived, each gets the degree 
of help and sympathy that was due to him. 

Fated to be Free. 


162 









■July 28 
















July 30- 










i6 3 
















July 31 


O last love ! O first love I 
My love with the true heart, 

To think I have come to this your home, 
And yet —we.are apart! 

Contrasted Songs. 


164 















































































311 ugugt. 


-♦- 

And lo ! the sun is coming. Red as rust 
Between the latticed blind his presence burns, 

A ruby ladder running up the wall; 

And all the dust, printed with pigeons’ feet, 

Is reddened, and the crows that stalk anear 
Begin to trail for heat their glossy wings, 

And the red flowers give back at once the dew, 

For night is gone, and day is born so fast, 

And is so strong, that, huddled as in flight, 

The fleeting darkness paleth to a shade, 

And while she calls to sleep and dreams “ Come on,” 
Suddenly waked, the sleepers rub their eyes, 

Which having opened, lo ! she is no more. 

Afternoon at a Parsonage . 

How hot it was that morning! and as the boat 
pushed itself into a little creek, and made its way 
among the beds of yellow and purple iris which 
skirted the brink, what a crowd of dragon-flies and 
large butterflies rose from them. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 







August i 


The summer night draws near its noon; 

The wheat fields rustle nigh; 

A golden reaping-hook — the moon 
Hangs like a sign on high. 

Poems. 


- August 2---- 

She was “of imagination all compact;” but that is 
a very unlucky case where there is weak judgment, 
little or no keenness of observation, a treacherous 
memory, and a boundless longing for the good 
things of life. Of all gifts, imagination, being the 
greatest, is least worth having, unless it is well 
backed either by moral culture or by other intellect¬ 
ual qualities. It is the crown of all thoughts and 
powers ; but you cannot wear a crown becomingly if 
you have no head (worth mentioning) to put it on. 

Fated to be Free. 

- August 3- 


Learn that to love is the one way to know, 

Or God or man: it is not love received 
That maketh man to know the inner life 
Of them that love him ; his own love bestowed 
Shall do it. 


A Story of Doom. 




























August i 






















August 2 












































August 3 




































_ 




_ 
























August 4 


She was one of those people to whom a compli¬ 
ment is absolute poison. The first man who casu¬ 
ally chanced to say something to her in her early 
youth, which announced to her that he thought her 
lovely, changed her thoughts about herself for ever 
after. 

Fated to be Free. 


August 5 — 


All she said and did and wore, appeared to be a 
part of herself; there was a sweet directness, a placid 
oneness about her, which inspired belief and caused 
contentment. 

Don John. 


August 6 


Youth! youth! how buoyant are thy hopes 1 they 
turn, 

Like marigolds, toward the sunny side. 

The Four Bridges. 




170 





















August 4 

























August 5 


...... * 




















August 7 


Even if you quench me, you will be disappointed, 
as the wild Tartar is who, when he spies a man 
that’s handsome, valiant, wise, if he can kill him, 
thinks to inherit his wit, his wisdom, and his spirit; 
or, as that famous schoolman was, who swallowed 
his enemy’s knife, that it might be handy to whet his 
words and sharpen his tongue on, but found it cut 
short all his arguments. 

Off the Skelligs. 

— - - August 8 -—•— - 

Quoth the hero dying, whelmed in glory, 

“ Many blame me, few have understood ; 

Ah, my folk, to you I leave a story, — 

Make its meaning good.” 

Quoth the folk, “ Sing, poet! teach us, prove us ; 

Surely we shall learn the meaning then : 

Wound us with a pain divine, O move us 
For this man of men.” 

Winstanley. 

- - August 9 —- 


O Life, be Life indeed, true faith afford, ' 

Let us cry, also, “We have seen the Lord.” 

Poems. 



172 
















August 7 


August 8 


August 9 












- A ugust 1 o-1 

And I am so delighted with this world, 

That suddenly has grown, being new washed, 

To such a smiling, clean, and thankful world, 

And with a tender face shining through tears, 

Looks up into the sometime lowering sky, 

That has been angry, but is reconciled, 

And just forgiving her, that I, — that I,— 

O, I forget myself. 

Gladys and her Island. 

— August 11 - -- 

And yet, if after a man’s death, his relations were 
to sit in judgment on him, and were to bring out and 
make a great heap of all the things they thought he 
had not earned with perfect honesty, and were to 
allow the unscrupulous to have a free fight over 
them, each appropriating what he could for his own 
benefit, would that make the world any better than 
it is ? 

Sarah De Bcrenger. 

-— August 12 ---- I 


She longed to be sought more than she cared to 
be won ; it soothed and comforted what had been a 
painful sense of disadvantage to know that one 
man at least had sighed for her in vain. 

Fated to be Free. 


*7 4 













August io 







Aucrust 11 ———- 

o 






August 12 
























































August 13 


And yet to you and not to me belong 

Those finer instincts that, like second sight 
And hearing, catch creation’s undersong, 

And see by inner light. 

Honors. 


August 14 - 


Every right and natural responsibility of which you 
relieve a man, taking it on yourself, makes him less 
able to bear those responsibilities that nothing can 
relieve him of. If you could take all his duties from 
him, as we sometimes do, it would only make it cer¬ 
tain that he would not then even do his duty by 
himself. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


August 15 


When we see family likeness, which we constantly 
do, we think how natural it is; but when we see 
family unlikeness, which we also constantly do, it 
never costs us a moment’s surprise, a moment’s 
thought. 

Don John. 


176 















August 13 




V 






August 14 








' * 








• 





• 


































August 16 


— 


Oh ! we are far too happy while they last; 

We have our good things first, and they cost naught; 
Then the new splendor comes unfathomed, vast, 

A costly trouble, ay, a sumptuous thought, 

And will not wait, and cannot be possessed, 

Though infinite yearnings fold it to the breast. 

Margaret in the Zebec. 


I--— August 17-- 

Said he to me this morning, “ Misfortunes in this 

I life is what we all hev to expect. They ought not to 
surprise us,” said he ; “ they never surprise me, nor 
nothing does.” It’s true too. And he’s allers for 
making a sensible observation, as he thinks (that 
shows what a fool he is). No, if he was to meet a 
man with three heads, he would n’t own as he was 
surprised; he’d merely say, “You must find this 
here dispensation very expensive in hats.” 

Fated to be Free. 


August 18 — 


He was a graduate in nature’s university. Nature 
is wiser than the schoolmaster; she educates, but 
she never crams. Her scholars do not go up to take 
their degrees; their degrees come to them. 

Sarah De Berenger. 











August 16 






August 17 


■ ■ 











August 18 















August 19 


I have several times observed that nobody thanks 
one for giving up what is clearly one’s own, — not 
even the person for whom it is done ; for he either 
thinks it is all right, which is a pity, — or he knows 
it is not all right, and by accepting it lowers himself, 
— or he does not think about it, which is nearly as 
bad. 

Off the Skelligs. 


August 20 


Ecstatic chirp of winged thing, 

Or bubbling of the water-spring, 

Are sounds that more than silence bring 
Itself and its delightsomeness. 

Scholar and Carpenter. 


- August 21 --- 

When the rose of thine own being 
Shall reveal its central fold, 

Thou shalt look within and marvel, 
Fearing what thine eyes behold ; 
What it shows and what it teaches 
Are not things wherewith to part; 
Thorny rose! that always costeth 
Beatings at the heart. 


Poems. 














August 19 


































August 20 


August 21 





- 






























■ 





























August 22 




Young girls, when reluctant to do any particular 
thing, often find their shoulders in the way. These 
useful, and generally graceful, portions of the hu¬ 
man frame appear on such occasions to feel a wish 
to put themselves forward, as if to bear the brunt of 
it, and their manner is to do this edgeways. 

Faled lo be Free. 


August 23 


She was a sweet-tempered young creature, had 
never done any particular good in the world; but 
then what opportunity had she found ? for the same 
reason possibly she had never done any particular 
harm. 

Don John. 


August 24 


lie could not escape thinking of her, being the 
slave for the moment of every pretty .girl. Good 
young men generally are. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


------J 

1 r>2 

















— August 22 



August 23 


- August 24 - 

ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 


183 











August 25 


Half an hour of hope and joy consoles for much 
foregone trouble, and further satisfies the heart by 
making it an easier thing to believe in more yet to 
come. 

Fated to be Free. 


August 26- 


How little we can know of the inner life of those 
about us ! The affection we rested in and that was 
proclaimed to the world may fade and perish, while 
unsuspected by us our names may be precious to 
some common acquaintance whom we seldom trou¬ 
ble ourselves to think about. 

Off the Skeliigs. 


August 27- 


Fare thee well, my love of loves! would I had died 
before thee! 

O, to be at least a cloud, that near thee I might flow, 
Solemnly approach the mountain, weep away my 
being o’er thee, 

And veil thy breast with icicles, and thy brow with 
snow! 

Requiescat in Pace. 




184 






















August 25 























— 



August 26 



















August 27 



—-- 



























i8 5 


























August 28 


When some affections which we would almost give 
our lives to keep warm and fresh grow cold in spite 
of cherishing, what a perversity of nature it seems 
that others can thrive, and live, and even grow, 
when they have nothing to feed upon, and every rea¬ 
son to fade and die! 

Off the Skelligs. 


--- August 29- 

O ye good women, it is hard to leave 
The paths of virtue, and return again. 

What if this sinner wept, and none of you 
Comforted her ? But I beseech 
Your patience. Once in old Jerusalem 
A woman kneeled at consecrated feet, 

Kissed them, and washed them with her tears. 

What then ? 

I think that yet our Lord is pitiful: 

I think I see the castaway e’en now! 

Brothers and a Sermon. 

- August 30- 


In general, the woman bears the small misfortunes 
and continued disappointments of life best, and the 
man bears best the great ones. 

Don John, 


186 

















August 28 





August 29 






mm-rnTmTmm-T ~ ' ’- "I 

















August 31 



“ I do not wish to marry a woman who takes such 
a deep and sincere interest in herself.” 

“ Why, don’t we all do that? I am sure I do.” 

“ You naturally feel that you are the most impor¬ 
tant and interesting of all God’s creatures to yourself. 
You do not therefore think that you must be so 
to me .” 

Fated to be Free. 


188 








































































































































































J>cptcm&cr. 


-♦- 

On a lonely sea-coast, at some distance from any 
houses, a lady was wandering at the turn of the tide, 
and watching somewhat sadly the shadows of the 
clouds as they passed over and changed the colors 
of the tranquil sea. 

It was a clear morning in the beginning of Sep¬ 
tember, and she had walked more than three miles 
from her lodgings in the nearest village. The first 
two miles had been under high rocky cliffs, from 
which tangled bugloss, thrift, and sea-lavender hung, 
and long trailing fern-leaves peeped, and offered 
somewhat to hold for the hand of the adventurous 
climber. The shore under these cliffs was rugged 
with rocks which stood out from the soft sand, and 
were covered with limpets; the water washing among 
them made a peculiar singing noise, quite different 
to the deep murmur with which it recedes from a 
more level shore. She listened to this cheery sing¬ 
ing, as the crisp little waves shook the pebbles, play¬ 
ing with them, lifting them up and tossing them 
together; and she listened to the sheep bells, and 
watched with wonder how the adventurous lambs 
found food and footing on the slippery heights of 

Poor Matt, or The Clouded Intellect. 













September i 


Let the people, O Queen I say, and bless thee, 
Her bounty drops soft as the dew, 

And spotless in honor confess thee, 

As lilies are spotless in hue. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


September 2 - 


“ Some folks forget,” continued Mr. Swan, “ that 
transplanted trees won’t grow the first year, and 
others want too much for their money, and too good 
of its kind; but fair and softly, thinks I; you can’t 
buy five shillings with threepence-halfpenny in any 
shop that I ever heerd of; and when you’ve earned 
half-a-crown you can’t be paid it in gold.” 

Fated to be Free . 


September 3 


Poetical justice is not- the kind of justice that gen¬ 
erally comes about in the order of God’s providence. 
We ought not to expect such; and woful, indeed, 
must be the disappointment of those who do kind 
actions in the hope of receiving it. 

The Wild-Duck Shooter. 
























September i 


— 


























September 2 



% 





































September 3 






























—* 


*9 3 


- 























September 4 




If to reflect a light that is divine 

Makes that which doth reflect it better seen, 
And if to see is to contemn the shrine, 

’T were surely better it had never been : 

It had been better for her not to shine, 

And for me not to sing. Better, I ween, 

For us to yield no more that radiance bright, 
For them, to lack the light than scorn the light. 

The Star's Monument. 

——- September 5 -- 


Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth, 
My soul to meet it springs * 

As the shining water leaped of old, 

When stirred by angel wings. 

The Long White Seam. 


September 6 — 


If maids be shy, he cures who can; 

But if a man be shy — a man — 

Why then the worse for him! 

Supper at the Mill. 


194 




















* 







- 














September 4 





















September 5 - 









































September 6 




















- September 7 - 

Time is a healer of sick hearts, 

And women have been known to choose, 
With purpose to allay their smarts, 

And tend their bruise, 

These for themselves. Content to give, 

In their own lavish love complete, 

Taking for sole prerogative 

Their tendance sweet. 

The Letter L. 


- September 8 


I like to do kindness spontaneously; but to have 
it represented that I ought to do it, takes away all 
the pleasure of it; makes it something that one is 
to be .flamed for if one does not perform, but not to 
be praised for if one does 1 

The Stolen Treasure. 


- September 9 -- 

Like coral insects multitudinous 
The minutes are whereof our life is made. 

They build it up as in the deep’s blue shade 
It grows, it comes to light, and then, and thus 
For both there is an end. The populous 

Sea-blossoms close, our minutes that have paid 
Life’s debt of work are spent; the. work is laid 
Before our feet that shall come after us. 


196 


Work. 
























September io 


Why should we be so fond of saying, “ Impossi¬ 
ble ! ” “Incredible!” “Improbable?” These are 
three empty words, yet how many a fine story have 
they marred! 

Stories Told to a Child. 


— September 11 


It is a fine thing to have it in our power to enrich 
a life — to give enough and all that was lacking. 
But some people are a long time before they can 
believe that is their case; and when at last they 
have learned to believe it, I have known some that 
spent so long thinking about it, that all the grace of 
the gift, — indeed the opportunity of making it, alto¬ 
gether went by. 

Off the Skelligs. 


- September 12- 

There can be little doubt that it is the fools, and 
not the wise, who govern the world. While the 
wise are considering, the fools act; while the wise 
investigate, the fools have made up their minds; by 
the time the wise have discovered, the fools have 
made arrangements, and the wise, for the sake of 
law and order, or if not, for the sake of peace and 
quietness, are obliged to give way. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


198 













September io 








September 11 







% 




* 




A V L x V o x. s 



September 12- 






































September 13 


— 


For, oh! she has a sweet tongue, 

And een that look down, 

She has a good word forbye 
Fra a’ folk in the town. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


September 14 


What have you done, I should like to know? And 
what are you, and what have you been, that is better 
worth recording than the sayings and doings recorded 
here? You think yourself superior? Well, you 
may be , certainly, and to reflect that you are , is a 
comfortable thing for yourself ! 

Stories Told to a Child. 


- September 15- 

To hear, to heed, to wed, 

Fair lot that maidens choose, 

Thy mother’s tenderest words are said, 

Thy face no more she views; 

Thy mother’s lot, my dear, 

She doth in nought accuse ; 

Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear, 

To love — and then to lose. 

Songs of Seven. 


200 


















September 13 
















September 14 








September 15 
























September i6~- 


Would I, to save my dear child dutiful, 

Dare the white breakers on a storm-rent shore ? 
Ay, truly, Thou all good, all beautiful, 

Truly I would, — then truly Thou would’st more. 

Poems. 


September 17- 

The soul does not always recognize itself as a 
guest seated within this frame ; sometimes it appears 
to escape and look at the human life it has led, as 
if from without. It seems to become absorbed into 
the august stream of being; to see that fragment 
itself without self-love, and as the great all of man¬ 
kind would regard it if laid open to them. 

It perceives the inevitable verdict. Thus and thus 
have I done. They will judge me rightly, that thus 
and thus I am. 

Fated to be Free. 

- September 18 -- 


Many people show us our deficiencies by the light 
of their own advantages, but Donald Johnstone’s 
wife showed rather how insignificant those deficien¬ 
cies must be since she who was so complete had 
never noticed them. 

Don John. 


L 


202 











September 16 







September 1 7 
* * . 










September 18 





. . — 







- 

















September 19 


“ The fulness of Him,” he said, “ that filleth all 


in all.” 


Fated to be Free. 


Note. —Miss Ingelow, under the impression that President 
Garfield was convalescent, desired to send him a token of her 
sympathy. It was received by Mrs. Garfield after his death, 
and in acknowledging it she said : “ The last book I read during 
the last days of the President’s illness was her (Miss Ingelow’s) 
‘ Fated to be Free ’ I read it to occupy the hours when I was 
not sitting beside him, lest my own thoughts should overcome my 
hope ; and I laid the book down finished only a few hours before 
his spirit passed away. It startled me with a fear that the clos¬ 
ing scene might be a prophecy. Alas ! alas 1 ” 

- September 20 - 


A straight stick may shame a crooked one that 
never knew how crooked it was till the other was 
laid beside it. 


A Sister's Bye-Hours. 




September 21 


We know they music made 
In heaven, ere man’s creation; 

But when God threw it down to us that strayed, 
It dropt with lamentation, 

And ever since doth its sweetness shade 
With sighs for its first station. 


A Cottage in a Chine. 



204 
































September 



People who are destined to get the command over 
others often surprise one by having the last style of 
manners that one could expect. They are not in 
the least alike either, as I have had opportunity of 
judging. 

. Off the Skelligs. 


— September 23 — 


If God gives me work to do, I will thank him that 
he has bestowed on me a strong arm; if he gives 
me danger to brave, I will bless him that he has not 
made me without courage; but I will go down on 
my knees and beseech him humbly to make me fit 
for my task, if he tells me it is 07ily to stand and 
wait. 

Marked. 


- September 24 


Regret and faith alike enchain; 

There was a loss, there comes a gain ; 

We stand at fault betwixt the twain, 

And that is veiled for which we pant. 

Scholar and Carpenter. 














— 









September 22- 








- - September 23 



September 24— 























I—- •September 25 ■ ■ ■■ ■ ■ a 

When the poplar leaves atremble 
Turn their edges to the light, 

And the far-up clouds resemble 

Veils of gauze most clear and white ; 

Though the heart be not attending, 

Having music of her own, 

On the grass, through meadows wending, 

It is sweet to walk alone. 

Afternoon at a Parsonage. 

- September 26 - 

. 

All nature seemed to smile on her sweetness. 

She reminded him, in that secluded spot, of a fair 
lily shaded by its own green leaf. She was every¬ 
where. The young growing things about him were 
lovely, for they were like her. The old steadfast 
trees were interesting, as in contrast to her. The 
very donkey was interesting, because she often tried 
in vain to make him go. 

Sarah De Berenger. 

. 

- September 27 - -- 1 

There are buds that fold within them, 

Closed and covered from our sight, 

Many a richly tinted petal, 

Never looked on by the light: 

Fain to see their shrouded faces, 

Sun and dew are long at strife, 

Till at length the sweet buds open — 

Such a bud is life. 

A Mother Showing the Portrait of her Child . 

I 


208 














September 25 


September 26 


September 27 












September 2 8 


The rich and the free have a choice, they often 
choose amiss. Yet no choice can (excepting for 
this world) be irretrievable ; and that same being for 
whom the great life of the world proved too much, 
learns often, in the loss of everything, what his ut¬ 
most gain was not ordained to teach. 

Fated to be Free. 


September 29 


We dwell as at creation’s brink, 

Yet saved, and safe from thrall; 

We think, if we may dare to think, 

Thou givest all to all. 

Poems. 


September 30 




L 


When she came 

Before him first, he looked at her, and looked 
No more, but colored his healthful brow, 

And wished himself a better man, and thought 
On certain things, and wished they were undone, 
Because her girlish innocence, the grace 
Of her umblemished pureness, wrought in him 
A longing and aspiring, and a shame 
To think how wicked was the world. 

Latirance. 















September 28 


- September 29 

ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. 


September 30 


211 










































■ 




























<©cto&er 


The green common was basking in the mild yellow 
sunshine of a fine autumnal day; every little eleva¬ 
tion was covered with heather, gorse, and foxglove 
flowers ; the young larks hidden under the ferns were 
chirping softly, the sky was serene, and all the wide- 
open world seemed drinking the sunshine. 

Off the Skelligs. 

Yellow leaves, how fast they flutter — woodland 
hollows thickly strewing, 

Where the wan October sunbeams scantly in the 
mid-day win, 

While the dim gray clouds are drifting, and in sad¬ 
dened hues imbuing 

All without and all within ! 

Poe?ns on the Death of three Children. 


213 





- October I - 

“ Take courage,” quoth he, “ and respect the mind 
Your Maker gave, for good your fate fulfil; 

The fate round many hearts your own to wind.” 
Twin soul, I will 1 I will! 

Honors. 


October 2 


Let my work be ahvay done 
As to Thee, and when the sun 
Sets and all Thy stars appear, 

Still acquaint me I am dear. 

Poems. 


October 3 


If ever I took to writing fiction I should not pre¬ 
tend to know all about my characters. The author’s 
world appears small if he makes it manifest that he 
reigns there. I don’t understand myself thoroughly. 
How can I understand so many other people ? 

Fated to be Free. 


214 
































October 4- 


There standing with my very goal in sight, 
Over my haste did sudden quiet steal; 

I thought to dally with my own delight, 

Nor rush on headlong to my garnered weal, 
But taste the sweetness of a short delay, 

And for a little moment hold the bliss at bay. 

The Four Bridges . 


October 5 


For she was purer than a driven flake 
Of snow, and in her grace most excellent; 
The loveliest life that death did ever mar, 

As beautiful to gaze on as a star. 

The Star’s Monument. 


The yellow poplar-leaves came down 
And like a carpet lay, 

No waftings were in the sunny air 
To flutter them away; 

And he stepped on blithe and debonair 
That warm October day. 

Strife and Peace . 


216 






October 4 







217 



















October 7 


She had the disadvantage of being very short¬ 
sighted, and so missed the flashing messages and 
secret communications that passed between other 
eyes. This defect makes many people more intel¬ 
lectual than they otherwise would be, and less in¬ 
telligent, throwing them more on thought and less 
on observation. 

Don John. 


- October 8 - 

Sweet is childhood — childhood’s over, 
Kiss and part. 

Sweet is youth — but youth’s a rover — 

So’s my heart. 

Sweet is rest; but by all showing 
Toil is nigh. 

We must go. Alas 1 the going, 

Say “ Good-bye.” 

Mopsa the Fairy. 

- October 9 -- 


Oh, what a curious place the world is, and what a 
number of things are found out afresh in it! What 
faded old facts stand forth in startling colors, as 
wonderful and new, when youthful genius gets a 
chance of sitting still while it passes, and making 
unnoticed studies of it. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


21 S 



















October 7 


October 8 







October 9 






219 














October 10 - 


Not with possession, not 
With fairest earthly lot, 

Cometh the peace assured, his spirit’s quest; 
With much it looks before, 

With most it yearns for more; 

And ‘ this is not our rest,’ and ‘ this is not our rest.’ 

Poems. 


October 11 — 


Some people want the poetic faculty; they have 
not discovered how to match a sensation with a 
sound, and translate their souls into other people’s 
ears with an A flat and a B natural,— as the hooting 
owl does her yearning after young mice for supper. 

Off the Skelligs. 


* October 12- 


' Oh, my child-God most gentle King, 
To me Thy waxing glory show; 
Wake in my heart as wakes the spring, 
Grow as the leaf and lily grow. 


Poems. 





























- October io 






















































October 11 






















> 










October 12 — 












































221 






































October 13 


“ Yellow leaves, yellow leaves, 

Whither away ? 

Through the long wood paths 
How fast do ye stray 1 ” 

“ We go to lie down 

Where the spring snowdrops grow, 
Their young roots to cherish 

Through frost and through snow.” 

Stories Told to a Child. 

- October 14- 


For hearts where wakened love doth lurk, 
How fine, how blest a thing is work! 

For work does good when reasons fail. 

Reflections. 


- October 15 —-- 

Should I change my allegiance for rancor 
If fortune changes her side ? 

Or should I, like a vessel at anchor. 

Turn with the turn of the tide ? 

Lift! O lift, thou lowering sky; • 

An thou wilt, thy gloom forego ! 

An thou wilt not, he and I 
Need not part for drifts of snow. 

Laurance. 


222 













October 13 



October 14 





October 15 












r 


- October 1 u- 

Hence we may learn , 

That though it be a grand and comely thing 
To be unhappy, — (and we think it is, 

Because so many grand and clever folk 
Have found out reasons for unhappiness), 

. . . . yet, since we are not grand, 

O, not at all, and as for cleverness, 

That may be or may not be, — it is well 
For us to be as happy as we can! 

Gladys and her Island. 


October 17 — 


She had a gracious insight into the feelings of 
others, and used it not to show off her own beauties, 
but to console them for defects in themselves. 

Don John. 


October 18 


Like a great river Thy love flows, 

Let not it run to waste, 

I ’ll dip my hand, so near it goes, 

Sure I thereof may taste. 

Poems. 


224 











- October 16 


October 17 


--—-—- October 18 

ST. LUKE, 


22S 












October 19 




Family likeness is always strongest among the 
uncultivated, and among lethargic and stupid people; 
and it is the same with nations, those who have 
little energy and no keen desire for knowledge are 
ten times more alike in feature, complexion, and. 
countenance than we are. No! family likeness is 
all very well in infancy, before the mind has begun 
to work on the face; but as a man’s children grow, 
they ought to be less and less alike every year. 

Fated to be Free . 


October 20 


My soul admires to hear thee speak; thy thought 
Falls from a high place like an August star, 

Or some great eagle from his air-hung rings — 
When swooping past a snow-cold mountain scar — 
Down the steep slope of a long sunbeam brought, 
He stirs the wheat with the steerage of his wings. 

Sonnet. 


—-- October 21 —— 

When I reflect how little I have done, 

And add to that how little I have seen, 

Then furthermore how little I have won 
Of joy, or good, how little known, or been: 

I long for other life more full, more keen, 

And yearn to change with such as well have run — 
Yet reason mocks me — nay, the soul, I ween, 
Granted her choice would dare to change with none. 

Wishing . 























—- 



October 19 










October 20 










October 2 1 







227 















--- October 22- 

He taught them, and they learned, but not the less 
Remained unconscious whence that lore they drew, 
But dreamed that of their native nobleness 

Some lofty thoughts, that he had planted, grew; 
His glorious maxims in a lowly dress 
Like seed sown broadcast sprung in all men’s view, 
The sower, passing onward, was not known, 

And all men reaped the harvest as their own. 

The Star’s 'Monument. 

-——- October 23 ---- 

She spoke, and lo, her loveliness 
Methought she damaged with her tongue ; 

And every sentence made it less, 

So false they rung. 

The rallying voice, the light demand, 

Half flippant, half unsatisfied ; 

The vanity sincere and bland — 

The answers wide. 

The Letter L. 

— October 24 — »—- 


People say of Eastern nations, that those who 
would hold sway over them must needs make them¬ 
selves feared, and they do not enough consider that 
this is almost as true at their own doors as it is at 
the ends of the earth. 

Sarah De Berenger. 



228 


































- October 2 5 -- 

What if mind and thought decayed, 

Old, I lose Thee from my ken, 

Thou chiefest of the sons of men, 

And Thy worth from memory fade; 

Oh ! most loving Lord, what then? 

Nay, but Thou wilt not forget; 

In Thy memory lives my boast; 

On the everlasting coast 
Thou wilt meet and own me yet, 

To the end and uttermost. 

Poems. 

- October 26 - 


Be glad, and say “ This beauty is for me — 

A thing to love and learn. 

“ For me the bounding in of tides ; for me 
The laying bare of sands when they retreat; 
The purple flush of calms, the sparkling glee 
When waves and sunshine meet.” 

Honors. 


- October 27 - 

“ Hold, heart! ” I cried ; “ for trouble sleeps; 

I hear no sound of aught that weeps ; 

I will not look into thy deeps — 

I am afraid, I am afraid ! ” 

“ Afraid 1 ” she saith ; “ and yet’t is true 
That what man dreads he still should view — 
Should do the thing he fears to do, 

And storm the ghosts in ambuscade.” 

Scholar and Carpenter. 


230 

























October 25 


October 26 










October 27 





_ 
































October 28 


' 

— 




This is a woman-ridden age. Yet, it is but fair 
to confess that all the former ones were man-ridden 
ages. What we want is a happy proportion. 

Off the Skel/igs. 


r 


October 29 




He was crammed full of human nature. He was 
full of us and the place we live in. We take a 
beautiful pathetic pleasure in reading him, because 
we like that a man who knew us so well should like 
us so much. 

Don John. 


- October 30 - 

What wonder man should fail to stay 
A nursling wafted from above. 

The growth celestial come astray, 

That tender growth whose name is Love 1 

It is as if high winds in heaven 
Had shaken the celestial trees, 

And to this earth below had given 

Some feathered seeds from one of these. 

Afternoon at a Parsonage. 


232 

















-:- October 28 

ST. SIMON & ST. JUDE. 


October 29 - 

\ 


October 30 


233 











- October 3 r- 

O to set my life, sweet bird, 

To a tune that oft I heard 
When I used to stand alone 
Listening to the lovely moan 
Of the swaying pines o’erhead, 

While, a-gathering of bee-bread 
For their living, murmured round, 

As the pollen dropped to ground, 

All the nations from the hives. 

Songs on the Voices of Birds. 














































































































































































|j5oticm6cr. 


-♦- 

The sweet warm days of October gave way to a 
succession of raw boisterous weather, when the foam 
from the rough troubled sea was blown into the 
cottage door, and when the gusty winds shook the 
frail little tenement. Black clouds gathered over 
the ocean, which, except where a line of froth marked 
its breaking on the beach, was almost as black as 
themselves. 

Poor Matt, or. The Clouded Intellect, 

The last house before you come to the open heath 
is a gray, cheerless looking place in winter, though 
in summer it looks pleasant and gay, for it is nearly 
covered with china roses. 

There are a good many trees in the front garden, 
and some thick laurestinus shrubs. On one side of 
the porch is the kitchen casement; on the other side 
the parlor windows. All through the summer, rose- 
leaves drift in whenever these are open, and, even 
as late as November, rosebuds tap against the glass 
whenever the blustering gale comes round from the 
heath, as if appealing to the inmates to take'them in 
and shelter them from the wind and the rain. 

Little Rie and The Rosebuds. 


23 7 














-- November i - 

If a man is reasonable and sees things as they 
were, he does not often fix on some particular act 
for which to blame himself when he deplores the 
past, for at times of clear vision the soul escapes 
from the bondage of incident. There is a common 
thought that beggars sympathy in almost every shal¬ 
low mind. It seldom finds deliberate expression. 
Perhaps it may be stated thus: — 

The greatness of the good derived from it, makes 
the greatness of the fault. 

Fated to be Free. 

- November 2 - 


I am but free, as sorrow is, 

To dry her tears, to laugh, to talk; 

And free, as sick men are, I wis, 

To rise and walk. 

And free, as poor men are, to buy 

If they have nought wherewith to pay ; 
Nor hope, the debt before they die. 

To wipe away. 

The Letter L. 

- November 3 -— 


I will not speak — I will not speak to thee, 

My star! and soon to be my lost, lost star. 

The sweetest, first, that ever shone on me, 

So high above me and beyond so far; 

I can forego thee, but not bear to see 
My love, like rising mist, thy lustre mar : 

That were a base return for thy sweet light. 

Shine, though I never more shall see that thou art 
bright. 

The Star’s Monument. 


238 

















239 












November 4 


Space is against thee — it can part; 

Time is against thee — it can chill; 

Words — they but render half the heart; 
Deeds — they are poor to our rich will. 

Afternoon at a Parsonage. 


-—- November 5 —--- 

Miss Jenny ended her account by saying, “ She’s 
gone where there’s no more sorrow — nor laughing 
neither.” 

And Charlotte said, “ Oh, Miss Jenny, I hope not, 
I think we shall often laugh in heaven. Don’t you 
think that at least angels can laugh ? ” 

“ There can be no laughing in heaven or among 
heavenly creatures that has malice in it — but many 
things are witty and droll without that.” 

Don John . 

--——- November 6 ————*- 


And time, that seemed so long, is fleeting by, 

And life is more than life; love more than love; 
We have not found the whole — and we must die — 
And still the unclasped glory floats above. 

The inmost and the utmost faint from sight, 

For ever secret in their veil of light. 

Margaret in the Zebec . 


240 











November 4 


November 5 


November 6 













November 7 


Great Elder Brother, deeply dear, 

Thy perfect love doth cast out fear; 

Thy goodness long my theme shall be. 

I wait becalmed, and draw my breath, 

At home with pain, at one with death, 

In league with God because of Thee.” 

Poems. 

- November 8-j 


A bad rhyme, like a bad egg, is aye conspeecuous. 
You may beat up a dozen eggs in the cake, but if 
only one of them’s bad it spoils all. 

Off the Skelligs. 

- November 9 —- 


But reason thus : “ If we sank low, 

If the lost garden we forego. 

Each in his day, nor ever know 
But in our poet souls its face ; 

Yet we may rise until we reach • 

A height untold of in its speech. 

Scholar and Carpenter . 


242 
















November 7 






November 8 










November 9 





















November io 


One launched a ship, but she was wrecked at sea; 

He built a bridge, but floods have borne it down ; 
He meant much good, none came : strange destiny, 
His corn lies sunk, his bridge bears none to town, 
Yet good he had not meant became his crown; 
For once at work, when even as nature, free 
From thought of good he was, or of renown, 

God took the work for good and let good be. 

Compensation. 


- November 11- 

Does it really matter nothing to the possessors 
whether their rank and standing came first as a mark 
of grace or of disgrace ? Apparently not. And these 
sons and these cousins, who have inherited a great 
name in science or in literature ? The dear progeni¬ 
tor sits, as it were, like an Egyptian of old, at all 
their feasts. Strange that, because he was so wise, 
they should think he must ram a hole for them to 
enter, and show themselves fools where they please. 

Sarah De Berenger. 

- November 12- 


Rueing, I think for what then was I made ; 

What end appointed for — what use designed ? 
Now let me right this heart that was bewrayed — 
Unveil these eyes gone blind. 


Honors. 
















November io 


November 11 



November 12 












November 13 


“ For,” I said, “ I have not met, 

White one, any folk as yet 
Who would send no blessing up, 

Looking on a face like thine ; 

For thou art as Joseph’s cup, 

And by thee might they divine.” 

Contrasted Songs. 


November 14 


Hence we may learn , if we be so inclined, 

That life goes best with those who take it best; 
That wit can spin from work a golden robe 
To queen it in ; that who can paint at will 
private picture gallery, should not cry 
For shillings that will let him in to look 
At some by others painted. 

Gladys and her Island. 

-—— November \ 5 —-- 


Mystery in romance and in tales is such a com¬ 
mon vulgar thing, in tragedy and even in comedy it 
is so completely what we demand and expect, that 
we seldom consider what an astonishing and very 
uncommon thing it is when it appears in life. 

Fated to be Free. 





















A. 




November 14 










November 15 


— 
























- November 16 - 

Learn, that if to thee the meaning 
Of all other eyes be shown, 

Fewer eyes can ever front thee, 

That are skilled to read thine own : 

And that if thy love’s deep current 
Many another’s far outflows, 

Then thy heart must take forever, 

Less than it bestows. 

A Mother Showing the Portrait of her Child. 


November 17 


How could I tell T should love thee to-day, 
Whom that day 1 held not dear ? 

How could I know I should love thee away 
When I did not love thee anear ? 

Supper at the Mill. 


- November 18- 

Some people appear to feel that they are much 
wiser, much nearer to the truth and to realities, than 
they were when they were children. I should not 
at all wonder if the thoughts of our childhood, 
when we look back on it after the rending of this 
veil of our humanity, should prove less unlike what 
we were intended to derive from the teaching of 
life, nature, and revelation, than the thoughts of our 
more sophisticated days. 

Off the Skelligs. 


248 
















November 16 



November 17 


November 18 













November 19 


Lord, when I stand and gaze 
On the night heavens, Thy ways 
Confound my thought, they are too great for me ; 
But wonders, these are none, 

Thou hast them so outdone 
In the great ways of Thy humility. 

Poems. 



- November 20 - 

Some narrow hearts there are 
That suffer blight when that they fed upon 
As something to complete their being fails, 

And they retire into their holds and pine, 

And long restrained grow stern. But some there are 
That in a sacred want and hunger rise, 

And draw the misery home and live with it, 

And excellent in honor wait, and will 

That somewhat good should yet be found in it, 

Else wherefore were they born ? Laurance. 

-- November 21 - 


Man dwells apart, though not alone, 

He walks among his peers unread; 

The best of thoughts which he hath known, 
For lack of listeners are not said. 

Afternoon at a Parsonage. 


250 





















November 2 1 























November 22 


Grand is the leisure of the earth; 

She gives her happy myriads birth, 

And after harvest fears not dearth, 

But goes to sleep in snow-wreaths dim. 

Dread is the leisure up above 

The while He sits whose name is Love, 

And waits, as Noah did, for the dove, 

To wit if she would fly to him. 

Scholar and Carpenter. 

- November 23---- 3 

Thou giv’st to men the fruitful land, 

And harvests from the deep; 

By day Thou giv’st with bounteous hand, 

By night Thou giv’st in sleep. 

Thou giv’st the wakening of the spring, 

In autumn sheaves to live ; 

We give but thanks, our God, O King, 

Nought else we have to give. 

Poems . 

-— November 24-J 


My heart, like the world about me, came forth to 
meet the sunshine, and thawed after its long winter. 

Marked. 


252 















- November 22 











November 23 


November 24 





*53 




















p —- November 25 - 

She was not one of those poets who write verses 
— very few are; none but such as are poets through 
and through should ever do that. Verse is only 
words, the garment that makes the spirit of poetry 
visible to others; and poets who have but little of 
the spirit often fritter that little away in the effort to 
have it seen. But she was a poet in this, that the 
elemental passions of our nature were strong in her, 
and she bowed to them with childlike singleness of 
soul. Sarah De Berenger. 

November 26- 

He looks on God’s eternal suns 
That sprinkle the celestial blue, 

And saith, “ Ah! happy shining ones, 

I would that men were grouped like you ! ” 

Yet this is sure, the loveliest star 
That clustered with its peers we see, 

Only because from us so far 

Doth near its fellows seem to be. 

Honors. 


- November 27-— 

Fair world ! these puzzled souls of ours grow weak 
With beating their bruised wings against the rim 
That bounds their utmost flying, when they seek 
The distant and the dim. 

We pant, we strain like birds against their wires ; 

Are sick to reach the vast and the beyond; — 
And what avails, if still to our desires 
Those far-off gulfs respond ? 

Poems. 


254 


















November 25 


November 26 


November 27 















-? November .28 

And yet I wish, — 

For sometimes very right and serious thoughts 
Come to me, — Ido wish that they would come 
When they are wanted ! — when I teach the sums 
On rainy days, and when the practising 
I count to, and the din goes on and on, 

Still the same tune and still the same mistake, 

Then I am wise enough : sometimes I feel 
Quite old. 

Gladys and her Island . 

- November 29- T - 



People don’t always give love for love,—some¬ 
times they give it for nothing. 

Off the Skelligs. 


- November 30- 

If quiet is, for it I wait; 

To it, ah! let me wed my fate, 

And, like a sad wife, supplicate 
My roving lord no more to flee ; 

If leisure is— but, ah 1 ’t is not — 

T is long past praying for, God wot; 

The fashion of it men forgot, 

About the age of chivalry. 

Scholar and Carpenter. 


256 















- November 28 





-- November 29 


- November 30 

ST. ANDREW. 










































































































2Dcccm6cr. 

-♦- 


Call to mind the coldest day you ever experienced. 
Think of the bitter wind and driving snow ; think 
how you shook and shivered — how the sharp white 
particles were driven up against your face — how, 
within doors, the carpets were lifted like billows 
along the floors, the wind howled and moaned in 
the chimneys, windows creaked, doors rattled, and 
every now and then heavy lumps of snow came 
rattling down with a dull weight from the roof. 

Stories Told to a Child. 








- December i — 


Even a just punishment may become unjust, un¬ 
less it is administered in the spirit of love. 

Little Rie and the Rosebuds. 


December 2 - 


When the darker days come, and no sun will shine, 
Thou shalt dry my tears, lass, and I ’ll dry thine. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


-*- December 3- 

“ Watchman, what of the night ? ” 

“ An hour is struck on high, 

But yet is no streak of light 
In the solemn, starless sky; 

Dark nor the dayspring breaketh, 

The world is drowsed and dumb; 

I sleep, but my heart waketh ; 

When will the Bridegroom come ? ” 

Poems. 


260 







December i 


December 2 


December 3 















December 4 


There was a seer who spake of old^ 

“ Though God be all my stay; 

Zion, thy sons shall yet behold 
A fairer, sweeter day. 

In the city of David light shall spring, 
Judgment her gates shall bless; 

A Man shall be the peace — a King 
Shall reign in righteousness. 

Poems. 


December 5 — 

\ 


One must have a certain amount both of intelli¬ 
gence and knowledge to be amazed even at the 
most extraordinary things. 

Off the Skelligs. 


December 6 


However good we might be, still we were only 
children. We actually felt ashamed of ourselves in 
her presence to think that we were children ! We 
knew we could not help it, it was an inevitable dis¬ 
pensation, but she did not appear to think so; she 
sometimes had the appearance of thinking that we 
could help it if we liked, and were children on 
purpose. 

The Grandmother's Shoe. 


262 













































- December 7 


You were to me the world’s interpreter, 

The man that taught me Nature’s unknown tongue, 
And to the notes of her wild dulcimer 

First set sweet words, and sung. 

And what am I to you ? A steady hand 
To hold, a steadfast heart to trust withal; 

Merely a man that loves you, and will stand 
By you, whate’er befall. 

Honors. 

- December 8- 

If those who have the most satisfying lot that 
life can give are to breathe freely, they must get 
through, and on, and out of it. 

Not because it is too small for us, but too great, 
it bears so many down. On the whole that vast 
mass of us which inherits its narrowest portion, 
tethered, and that on the world’s barest slope, does 
best. 

Fated to be Free. 


December 9 




She had turned herself out of the paradise of in¬ 
nocence ; she had gathered the apple and not tasted 
its sweetness. How was she to know what a com¬ 
mon experience this is ? How could she suppose 
that the promised good in evil was all a cheat, and 
that she should find nothing but bitterness in it from 
the very first ? The everlasting lie had been uttered 
to her also. 

Don John. 


264 



























December y 







December 8 


















December 9 






















































December io- 


Court her, master, court her, 

So shall ye do weel; 

But and ben she ’ll guide the house, 

I ’se get milk and meal. 

Ye ’se get lilting while she sits 
With her rock and reel. 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


- December 11 


High things to each mind are the things above it. 
Let each put forth his hand for those on his own level. 
It is difficult to think of things as high in the ab¬ 
stract. The dining-room table is high to a black- 
beetle, but a camelopard can easily look in at the 
first floor windows. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


- December 12 


O King David! King David sang of old 

Among the little watered valleys while he watched 
the fold; 

Over rocks of wild En-gedi when he sheathed the 
sword: 

And would we had King David’s harp, and so could 
praise the Lord 1 

Poems. 


266 













December io 



_ 







December 11 —-— 






December 12 







— 


.—I ..... 




267 





















December 13 


— 


He never scolded me for the fault of the moment, 
but inveighed against me in the piece , as a draper 
would say. 

Stories Told to a Child. 


- December 14- 

Not often does a man pass his whole life before 
him and deliberately criticise himself, his actions 
and his way. 

If he does, it is seldom when he would appear to 
an outsider to have most reasonable occasion; rath¬ 
er during some pause when body and mind both are 
still. 

Fated to be Free. 


----- December 15 ——- 

Love thy Father, and no more 
His doings shall be strange. Thou shalt not fret 
At any counsel, then, that He will send,— 

No, nor rebel, albeit He have with thee 
Great reservations. Know, to Be is more 
Than to have acted; yea, or after rest 
And patience, to have risen and been wroth, 
Broken the sequence of an ordered earth, 

And troubled nations. 

A Story of Doom. 


268 















- December 13 

























December 16 


Letters, at least the letters of most people, are 
unsatisfactory after long absence. The mystery 
that we want to penetrate, the soul that we want to 
reach with our soul, cannot unveil itself to us on a 
sheet of paper, even if it yearn to do so, and is 
willing to let us know as much as we can under¬ 
stand. 

Off the Skelligs. 

- December 17- 


The charity of the rich is much to be commended, 
but how beautiful is the charity of the poor. 

The Wild-Duck Shooter. 


December 18 


Next to the joy of possession stands, to such as 
she, the good of doing good, and being necessary to 
the objects of their love. 

Fated to be Free. 



270 


















■December 16 


December 17 


December 18 



271 


















- December 19 -- 

It was a happy thing to sit 
So near, nor mar his reverie; 

She looked not for a part in it, 

So meek was she. 

But it was solace for her eyes, 

And for her heart, that yearned to him, 

To watch apart in loving wise 
Those musings dim. 

The Letter L. 

- December 20 - 


Of my life she made the story: 

I must weep — so soon ’twas told. 

But your name did lend it glory, 

And your love its thread of gold ! 

Mopsa the Fairy. 


December 21 


She might perhaps have been called a twaddler in 
society, but in her own sphere, she was useful and 
beloved. 


Studies for Stories. 






















-December 19 - 


- December 20- 


ST. THOMAS. 


- December 21 - 


273 














December 22 - : - 


Danger that ends in death has a fearful attractive¬ 
ness; it draws the island children out, quite as 
strongly as that which is surmounted and comes 
safe home again. 

Sarah De Berenger. 


- Decern her 2 3 - 

A man tells a great lie, and saves his character by 
it. No wonder it weighs on his conscience ever after. 
And yet perhaps he has told countless lies, both 
before and since, told them out of mere carelessness, 
or from petty spite or for small advantages, and ut¬ 
terly forgotten them. Now which of these, looked 
at by the judge, is the great offender ? Is the one 
lie he repents of the most wicked, or are those that 
with small temptation he flung about daily, and so 
made that one notable lie easy ? Fated to be Free . 

- December 24 -- 

Deep the snow-drift covereth all, . 

Stars do sparkle as they’d fall; 

Hark! the waits come down the street, 

Heart o’ mine, their news is sweet. 

Nay, I care not for the cold. 

Hearkening thus good tidings old ; 

“ Wake ! you friends and neighbors, wake! 

Thank the Lord for Christ, His sake. 


Poems. 


















December 22 






' 














December 23 


December 24 














275 


















































December 25 




It was so long ago, 

But God can make it now , 

And as with that sweet overflow, 

Our empty hearts endow; 

Take, Lord, those words outworn, 

Oh ! make them new for aye, 

Speak — “ Unto you a child is born,” 

T o-day — to-day — to-day. 

Poems , 


December 26 


But once more He comes from God, 

Master of this earthly sod; 

Then the proud shall meet rebuff, 

Then the poor shall have enough ; 

Then the mourners glad shall be, 

Then th’ oppressed shall go free ; 

Bide in hope, He comes again, 

Sleep and rest, He comes to reign. 

Poems . 


December 27 


God’s great Gift to man forlorn, 
In a winter night was born; 
Angels tell the glorious tale, 

Let not, earth, thy welcome fail. 
“All hail,” and “all hail.” 


Poems. 


































CHRISTMAS DA V. 


■December 25 






December 26 — 



ST. STEPHEN. 







ST. 


JOHN , EVANGEVST. 






December 2V - ---- 




277 
























December 28 - 




He had a smile that was worth watching for, it was 
so sunny and tender, such a strange contrast to the 
grave cast of his features, the steady manliness of his 
demeanor, and the somewhat masterful way in which 
he worked and ruled. 

Off the Skelligs. 


- December 29 -— 

On Zion’s hill the sacred dust 
Lies bare ’neath arid skies; 

From ruined walls her sons are thrust, 
Foregone her sacrifice. 

But Zion’s voice lives yet; and brought 
Adown the ages ring 
The songs of praise he sweetly taught 
That was her shepherd king. 

Poems . 


-- December 30 - 1 — 

Yellow leaves, yellow leaves, 

Faded and few, 

What will the spring flowers 
Matter to you ? 

“ We shall not see them, 

When gaily they bloom, 

But sure they will love us 
For guarding their tomb.” 

The Lost Wand. 


278 







279 














- December 31 - 

The year passeth — it and all 
God shall take and shall let fall 
Soon, into the whelming sea 
Of His wide eternity : 

O, for Jesus’ sake, 

Wake 1 

Noiseless as the flakes of snow 
The last moments falter and go; 
The time-angel sent this way 
Sweeps them like a drift away: 
O, for Jesus’ sake, 

Wake ! 


Poems. 
































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